Woke up at 5 AM yesterday and got to work on the last chapter. Yes, I am already on the last chapter of the story.

Here is the seventh chapter. It's a little shorter than usual, but that was the nature of what the plot is demanding at the moment. I'm hoping that you enjoy it anyway. I promise you, the next chapter will be better.

Truth be told, it's a bit of a transition chapter. Yes. That's what it is. And yet I elected to have Ian's POV in here. I figured that since he's becoming such an important character, it was a necessity to have him represented. Now it's like the Heroes Of Olympus!

This is either the shortest or the second-shortest chapter so far. I'm sorry for that, but there really wasn't too much I could have done to make it longer. I think this was an okay length for what it was. My average is still above 5.5K, where I want to keep it.

No question today, so let's just get into the action.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Fox, just this story and some of the characters in it.

With that in mind, enjoy the chapter!

WILLOW'S POV

After Cole and Konstantin managed to safely get back onto the ship, we decided to convene in the dining room for a meeting. It wasn't necessarily an emergency meeting per se, but it was almost definitely going to be an important one. After all, we'd just gotten through much of Sector X.

Where else was there to go that we would be able to thwart the enemy? I supposed that this was the whole point of the meeting.

I walked up to the dining room, and I somehow managed to be the last person there. Everyone else was at the table, including Lucas, despite the fact that he still required crutches to walk. He was looking even better now, and I was amazed at the medical technology that they had in this dimension, able to mend wounds this quickly.

It was still covered in bandages like part of a mummy wrapping. I was amazed that he still had circulation in his leg, it was wrapped so tightly, but he didn't even look uncomfortable.

"Good, you're here" Falco said. "We were just about to talk about some strategy".

"What type of strategy?" I asked, even though I thought I already knew.

"Just what direction we expect the war to take in the future, and what we will do in order to turn the tides in our favor. What do you think of that?"

"I think that this is a good idea, yes. But how will we accomplish this?"

"Let's just get started before we lose everyone" Dr. Howler said.

"I say that's a good idea" Konstantin said, looking energetic.

"Anyway", Falco began, "we just got through most of the enemies in Sector X. However, that's not all there is here. You see, Sector X goes on for quite a while, over a day's worth of travel. And, although it will take some maneuvering to get through, I think that we can make it to the warp zone. What do you guys think?"

"Doesn't the warp zone go to Sector Z?" Lucas said. "I mean, I've played the video game, but isn't Macbeth the planet we should be aiming for? Given that that's their main base of operations?"

"We need more allies" Dr. Howler said. "Right now, we'd get overwhelmed right away against Andross's forces. The best place to get them is...elsewhere".

"Where else? We ran away from Fichina, and Corneria is still hunting for Konstantin" Cole said. "It looks pretty bleak for us right now. What else could we possibly do?"

"It goes to the human world" Falco said. "The Sector X warp zone no longer goes to Sector Z. It goes to Earth".

"Where on Earth?" Lucas asked. "Shanghai? Sydney? Swanville?"

"I don't know for sure" Dr. Howler replied. "What we do know is that it's not safe to stay in Sector X for any longer than we need to. There is far too much debris for it to not end up clipping one of our wings eventually".

"We'll help out in the human world, as much as we can, and then we'll head back to Lylat. The main war is still being fought here".

"Wait" Ian said. "The human world is under attack?"

"As a matter of fact, it is" Falco responded. "Various cities in Asia, Europe, and the Americas are being attacked by Venomian forces. Of course, the humans don't see anything out of the ordinary. They probably just think they're terrorists or something...but we know better".

I frowned. This raised more questions than it answered. If most ordinary humans couldn't see the Anglar forces for what they really were, what made us any different? Why did we get this gift when most other people didn't?

"You can't just fly an Arwing into Amsterdam, for instance, and not get looked at funny" Dr. Howler said. "And then, once we've seen what's going on in the human world, we can go back to fighting the Venomian forces in the Lylat System, because that's where the real action is happening. That's where the war is won or lost, really".

It sounded like a good plan to me. We were already nearly three weeks out from Corneria, and I was getting kind of sick of seeing just empty space, and, during the week and a half we had spent on Fichina, snow and ice for walls. It had been more than two months since we had last seen Earth, and I had to admit that I was looking forward to it.

On the other hand, if what Falco was saying was true (and I had no real reason to suspect that it wasn't), things weren't exactly rainbows and roses there either. If the cities of the human world were under attack, that was indeed not good news for us.

"So...it's February 21 now. How much longer do you think this war is going to last?" Lucas asked Falco.

"I don't know, Lucas. The truth of the matter is, there is no way to know. But we'll try to end it as soon as possible...making sure, of course, that it's us who win. Because I really do think that we have the ethically right side of this conflict. I really do".

I looked over at Konstantin. He'd been pretty weak back when he had been first broken out of his cell, but he had regained most of his lost weight, putting him back in his "slightly overweight" category. He seemed to be fully recovered physically, but I could only imagine how much he was still mentally anguished by the memories of that dark, dank mountain prison. That overcoat of his could only conceal so much.

Later that day, I decided to visit Lucas in his cabin. He was lying on top of his bed, his injured leg propped up on a pillow. Without pain medication, it had to be hurting like hell, but he barely gave the slightest grimace to suggest that was the case.

"Hey, Lucas" I said.

He looked over at me. Noticing who it was, he reached his arms out like he was hugging an invisible person...which ended up being me. The fact of the matter was, I hadn't been expecting a hug that much, but I was glad for it just the same.

"Good afternoon, Willow. I'm just relaxing. I know that we'll be heading into the warp zone tomorrow, and then back to the human world...can you imagine what that's going to be like?"

The truth was, I couldn't. It would be pretty crazy to end up back where we had come here from. I only hoped that it wouldn't be Swanville that we warped to. I wasn't sure if I could face my parents, or if Lucas could face his, after what they had done by selling us here.

I had never expected to see the human dimension again, fully predicting that we would be consigned to the Lylat System at least for the foreseeable future. I didn't see any reasons to expect otherwise. However, now that we'd learned about the warp, it seemed like a very real possibility. Indeed, it seemed that this would most likely be what happened.

"It'll be pretty interesting. Where do you think we'll end up?"

"No way to tell" Lucas said.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it would do no good to speculate about it. There was just no way to know until we got there.

"I'm just glad that you're still here" I said. "First there was the mission during which you were trapped underneath the ice for fifteen hours. Then, there was the shooting. Really, Lucas, you need to stop scaring me".

"Well, that's me" he said. "Wing And A Scare. If they were going to write a Childhood Of Famous Americans book about me, that's what the subtitle would be. Just imagine it. LUCAS ENFIELD- Wing And A Scare".

We both had a pretty good laugh about that for a few seconds.

"In all seriousness, though", I said, "you really do scare me sometimes, Lucas. Seeing you in that bed, connected to all of those machines...it really isn't a pleasant feeling, you know?"

"I get it" he said. "But it's not like I could control getting shot. I literally tripped over Mike's dead body on the way to escape, and then I got knocked out by Wolf".

"Still, though, you could've, oh, I don't know, been more careful?"

"There wasn't time, Willow! And once you're unconscious, you can't help it when you get tied to a chair like I was and shot in the leg!"

"Well, then tip the chair over so that it's harder for him to hit you!"

"And you think I didn't try that?" he snapped. "I didn't just wake up and decide, 'Oh yeah! I feel like getting shot today and getting two blood transfusions! I feel like getting my girlfriend pissed at me because I couldn't do anything to protect myself!'"

"I'm not pissed at you, I'm just...".

"Wondering why I got shot? Really, is that a hard question to answer? Wolf O'Donnell was running wild around the army base, and I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but also in the right place at the right time to get help. Isn't that satisfactory enough of an explanation for you?"

I couldn't take this anymore. "Look", I said, "I'm going down to the rec room now. You're okay staying right there?"

Lucas sat up straight, but I could tell that it made him wince to do so.

"I'll take that as a yes. See you at dinner".

LUCAS'S POV

Oh, yes. A great way to spend part of an afternoon. Getting into a fight with my girlfriend over whether or not I could have avoided getting shot.

At dinner that evening, it was awkward. Coming off of a major row between us, even though it had barely even lasted for a minute or two, I could barely even look at her. I mean, what right did she have to question my willingness to not get shot by a laser from Wolf O'Donnell?

Before getting in bed that night, I tried to relax a bit. I tried to tell myself that she was just frustrated in that moment from hearing that the human world was under attack as well as the furry world, and it was not really directed at me. I desperately wanted to believe this. But I just didn't know if it was true.

In any case, I really hoped that I wouldn't have a nightmare. I had heard somewhere that if you were angry before going to bed, you were more likely to have a nightmare. I couldn't remember who or where I had heard or read it from, but it seemed fairly plausible to me.

Of course, it didn't work.

The second I managed to fall asleep, I ended up in a barren desert landscape. I somehow knew that it was a dream, but I could tell that the air was toxic here. Had I actually been here in person, it would have been better if I had avoided breathing as much as possible.

This led me to the realization that I was on Venom. And that realization made me feel slightly guilty. I should have taken Konstantin more seriously when he claimed to have seen Wolf O'Donnell and Panther Caroso plotting my demise.

But no matter. The thing was, I was here right now, and I could see a large stone structure in front of me. A temple. I felt some kind of beckoning, and my soul, or whatever it was, rose up off the ground and floated towards the entrance. I entered the temple and found myself thirty or so feet off the ground. Since the ceiling was very high, I could have reached my arms up and not come close to touching the ceiling.

Below me was the exact scene that Konstantin had described to me. There was what appeared to be a brain in a jar, which was not something that was necessarily pleasant to witness. And there were two other people standing on the ground.

One of them was a cat whom I recognized as Panther Caroso. The other was Pigma Dengar, known for betraying the original Star Fox team three years before Fox's team came around to destroy Andross. They were both conversing with each other, and I eventually managed to pick up what they were saying.

"Unfortunate that we couldn't actually kill Enfield" Panther said. "I mean, it was so perfect, and we had it...Wolf just had to get Lucas in the heart instead of the leg, and he'd be dead. We'd have completely cut off the head of the snake, and everything would be wonderful now".

"I know" Pigma said. "But we've got to keep trying. Already, we've heard that Wolf has managed to escape".

That shocked me. Bernat Homeros was anything if not thorough. He'd never let a traitor like Wolf O'Donnell escape alive. Plus, Wolf was severely injured as well. I'd been unconscious for it, but Cole had told me that he'd shot that asshole. He shouldn't have been able to get away from the army base anytime soon after that.

"At least, from what I heard, Enfield got off a lot worse than Wolf. They both needed to have surgery, but the boy needed a blood transfusion. Intelligence has revealed that they are currently travelling through Sector X".

Intelligence? What intelligence? They fucking know that we're in Sector X? How do they know that? What does this mean for us?

I've got to warn them!

"Right now, the boy's not our top priority. Yes, another laser would probably kill him, or at least be a lot worse based on the fact that he's still recovering from the first one, but we have bigger fish to fry at the moment. Our goal is to slowly attack and take over the human world".

This wasn't too surprising, given that we had already been told earlier that this was what was going on. I could only wonder what their ambitions were with the world.

"With this brain", Pigma said, "we can accomplish this goal. Andross is growing stronger, and it's only a matter of time before he rises again. When that happens, we will be rewarded. We're going to conquer the world!"

"Easy, Pigma" Panther chastised him. "Our victory is not guaranteed yet. It'll take some time for Andross to rise, and we still need to make some inroads on Earth. What cities do you suggest? Paris? Moscow? Beijing?"

"I want Wyoming!" Pigma said.

"Sure. You get Wyoming, and I'll take California. Let's divide up the world based on who's most loyal to Andross and who isn't. We'll remake the human world in our own image".

"But..." Pigma began.

"Spit it out!" Panther exclaimed. "And, just so you know, Wyoming's really just geysers and stuff, so I don't know how strategically valuable it is".

"There's the Yellowstone Supervolcano" Pigma replied. "If we drop a bomb there, we could destroy most of the North American continent. But then I won't get Wyoming..." he said, trailing off.

"So...Beijing, then? That's a pretty big global city, although we could also go for Shanghai".

"Naw, Beijing is good for now. Let's get this thing going!"

They segued into discussing invasion methods, but I didn't really care too much about that. Right now, all I knew was one thing:

I needed to warn my friends.

The next morning, we all convened for breakfast while I told them about what I'd seen.

Ian nearly choked on a bite of his bagel. "So...you're saying that they're going to try to take Beijing? In the real world?"

"Didn't we already establish that the human world was under attack last night?" Willow said. "Yes, they're going to take Beijing if we don't do something about it. We need to get to the human world!"

"We're nearing the warp now" Falco said. "We're going to send two of you guys out to shoot down the four gates and get through to the warp zone. Then, we'll get past all of the obstacles and enemies there until we reach the human world".

"Can you believe that we're about to go back there?" I asked Willow.

"No, I can't. Can you?"

"Not until I'm there!" Konstantin said. "Personally, I was born in the U.S.A., so I really am looking forward to going back there".

Konstantin was alluding to an event at which he had flipped off the Cornerian flag while singing the Bruce Springsteen song. This had gotten him a detention, as well as put him in the firing line of people to blame for the Anglar army attack the original location of the school.

"I'm not sure where the warp leads, but it might not be anywhere in America" Dr. Howler said. "It could be in the middle of the ocean, for instance".

"It won't be" Falco said. "I don't know where the warp leads, but I do know that it leads to land. The fact remains, however, that we can't tell the Cornerians this".

"Why not?" I asked him.

"I think it has something to do with me" Konstantin answered.

"That's actually correct" the avian replied. "Konstantin, it's Day 21 of you being on the run, and the manhunt has still not stopped. You can't just go back like that, or else you'll get killed on the spot!"

"That's right" Dr. Howler said.

"So it's just us" Willow said miserably. "It's up to us to win the war against the Anglars. No help from the Cornerian government, or anyone else for that matter. And the fate of the Lylat System depends on it".

"I know, right?" Falco said. "But we're about to reach the warp. Let's get you guys in your Arwings; we'll need two people to volunteer for this small mission".

"What are we going to do?" Ian asked.

"Shoot down the warp gates and lead us into the warp zone to the human world" Falco replied. "Weren't you listening?"

"I'm going to do it" the boy formerly known as Seventy-Four said.

I looked at him. Ian had definitely changed from when I'd known him previously. He used to always be wearing a gas mask and never speak. Now, however, he seemed to be very different. He was definitely at least pretending to be brave enough to fly an Arwing and shoot down some gates.

I knew that I was never going to be allowed to fly in my current state. Not when I still had to use crutches. Although, according to Dr. Howler, I'd only need to use them for the next few days. Plus, the pain medication might still need a little time to get out of my system.

"Let me go with him" Willow replied.

I'd never known my girlfriend to be so brave. She hadn't gone with me on the mission to defuse the bomb underneath the glacier. And she'd later gotten mad at me for almost getting myself killed in that avalanche. Now, she was risking her own life.

What a hypocrite!

IAN'S POV

I don't know why I volunteered to help shoot down the gates and let the Great Fox through. Perhaps I wanted to be useful for once. Or maybe I just wanted to prove myself to these people. Or maybe I just really wanted to help, which was probably the same as the first one.

Probably, it was a combination of those three.

We were led by Falco down to the hangar and buckled ourselves up into the cockpits of Arwings. After being given the all-clear, we lifted up out of the ship.

Sector X was a dangerous area with a lot of space junk lying around. Even so, it wasn't hard to find the warp gates. From living back in California, I'd known this area of the game well, having played through it countless times throughout my childhood.

"Let's shoot it down, Willow!" I shouted into the communication receiver.

The gates turned from gray, to pink, to a darker and darker red before they opened. It took a lot of shots, however, before that was going to happen. Since the game is on rails, this makes it pretty hard to open all of them and enter the warp.

With the help of one of my smart bombs, we managed to hit the first gate enough just in time to pass through it. With that, our ships sped up a little bit.

"Lean on the attack button, Ian!" Willow said.

I was doing so, and it paid off. We managed to get through the second gate, and our speed went from slightly fast to very fast. Now, we were running a high risk at crashing into any of the huge amount of space junk lying around here. We had to be very careful.

I noticed that Falco wasn't giving us any transmissions. Probably he was just making sure that we didn't get distracted from the task at hand, which was still to destroy all of the gates and get into hyperspace by approaching the speed of light, which, at least in the human universe, was the highest speed possible.

We shot down the third gate, after which we reached a speed of no less than twice what we had started with. It was now very difficult to keep my Arwing on course, and I could only assume that Willow was having the same amount of trouble. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel, which was the fact that we only had one gate left.

Nervously putting my finger on the trigger, I shot the gate until it turned from gray, to pink, to scarlet, to crimson.

Before I knew it, we had passed through the gate. I felt a jerking below my backside, and we lifted off into a whole new world.

It looked kind of like we were underwater, with the sun very distant from us. I could tell that we were going very fast, but I couldn't really feel it anymore. It felt more like driving in a car on the highway. Maybe we were speeding a little, but still.

"Look out for the stone pillars" I cautioned Willow.

There were stone pillars with line designs etched onto them. I didn't know what these designs were, but it wasn't a good idea to crash into them, I could tell that much.

Eventually, there were more formations of spinning pillars. Overall, it wasn't too challenging, even though there were quite a few enemies lying around. It could have been a lot worse, really.

At a certain point, though, there was one in the pattern of what looked like a Chinese fan. It was also spinning, so this one required some maneuvering to get around.

I heard a horrible sound from behind me- the sound of splintering metal.

"What happened?" I asked Willow.

"Clipped a wing!"

"We'll just have to make it to the end of the warp, and then we can have it repaired" I said. "Be more careful next time!"

Willow seemed surprised that I was talking this much. After all, a few weeks ago I had been pretty much dead silent the whole time.

"Let's meet up with the others" she said.

For once, I agreed with her.

It's worth noting that for some of the time I was writing the last part of the chapter, where they enter the warp, I was listening to the warp zone music from Star Fox 64. It's a very eerie track that has a great deal of magic to it. And yes, I DO listen to music while writing. My playlist is on my YouTube channel in case you want to see it. It has over 200 songs on it.

And no, I'm not running out of ideas. I really do like Ian as a character.

I'm still in Canada, where I fully expected to get less writing done. Instead, I got MORE writing done than usual.