Author's Note: I'm moving at a relatively fast pace (I have been putting out 5000+ words every other day), but we're gonna be focusing on one of the major plot points: Venom, over the next few chapters and to get an idea of what's going on with these two. I'm playing a bit with basketcase Fox that's trying to reflect Wolf against bipolar Wolf who acts without thought of repercussion. If you have any specific comments on personality or things you think I've missed, feel free to attach them in reviews and I can try to pick them up and progress it a bit more wholly.

Thanks for reading~

–

I rubbed a hand over my right eye as we were approaching the building. Star Wolf had gotten a hold of a handful of Andross' inventions due to their work on Venom, and one of them was an ocular lens. The lens was able to detect heat signatures, structural oddities, electrical currents, and other unique features. After some tuning, they were able to set it to work for missions like this one, ventilation shafts, people, security cameras, and other such things. I had set it in my eyes, and it sank in so quickly. It seemed to have some means of hooking to my eye, and that was to apparently keep it adhered, but it meant that the removal hurt and that the eye was nonfunctioning for a few days after the use.

Unfortunately, since it was Andross' invention, there was a massive list of side effects that came with it. It wasn't safe for the user because it didn't have to be, it wasn't tested and produced for safety. The lens, while in, would start to distort your image of reality. You had a harder time distinguishing between what you saw through the lens and what was actually there. It would quickly develop a migraine after it was approaching the 15 minute mark, and then it was unbearable to wear for most users following those 15 minutes. We needed it for too long. Leon had offered to wear it, but I wanted to prove myself. Wolf couldn't wear it because he only had one working eye left and he couldn't afford to not be able to use his eyes at all for any period of time.

Gary Phoenix ran a business on Zoness that seemed to be similar to the business that had been run by Mr. Webber. The main entrance brought us into a large hotel and no one paid us even a little bit of attention. Off to our left was a fully staffed and active bar, and to our right was a hall that seemed to lead to a pool or a spa of some sort. Some distance ahead, we could see the desk that handled check ins. We immediately turned left, going to the bar.

Apparently, the bar had blind spots in its camera system, but the issue was that it was incredibly packed. We couldn't start mowing down people just to make sure that we had an opening to get into some sort of position, so instead, I followed suit. Wolf walked up to the bar and ordered a scotch, but I didn't have enough time to even know what sort of drinks to order. Leon got something fruity and mixed, and I just asked, what they had on tap before getting a lager. It hurt to drink, but it somehow felt safer to be drinking it here than to be drinking it in the raven's office. We paid and moved on.

I looked towards Wolf and he looked back towards me, and after a second, we moved to find somewhere to sit. It was convenient that Leon wasn't a conversationalist, but I could see that any time that Wolf and I interacted, he was judging us harshly for every action we made. "I would pretend we're on a date, but I don't think Leon would appreciate acting out being the third wheel." I just shot a look at Wolf for that. I had kissed him back, sure, but it was just to see how it felt when it was done right. It felt good, but I hadn't dropped to a knee and asked him to be my only mercenary. It wasn't like that, but we had something to fight for. Maybe we could see what it was like after all.

"This place is really packed," I said, and I looked around for a moment. I noted the security cameras and got a bearing on the floor plans. This building had been up for purchase recently, and Mr. Webber had been in dealings to try and purchase it before he as outbid. He had received the floor plans from the lease holder, but they were two months old at this point. He was acting on the assumption that there no changes in the building, and that was a dangerous game. "11."

Wolf flinched. We had only been informed of 6 security cameras being in there, and that was nearly double. There weren't going to be any blind spots in this room, not with that count. "Fox, do you trust me?"

"Not quite as far as I can throw you, Wolf," he said, which was a little less than not at all, but it sounded nicer. He looked at me for a second.

"You might want to start. Someone recognized you already," he said and I felt my body freeze up. Anyone that we ran into could arbitrarily steal me and turn me in for my bounty. I was the most recognizable of us, Wolf didn't get those fangirls because he wasn't plastered in the news all the time. I didn't want to turn, and I felt myself freeze up for a second. The larger canine grabbed me and practically ripped me across the table and pulled me into another kiss. This one was different from the first two, it was desperate.

"Oh, I guess it's not him."

He let go after a few seconds. His eye was still open through the entire experience, trailing them as they walked away. Leon just chuckled. "It would've been easier to just let him go through that. It looks like they wanted autographs."

Wolf was blushing, but I had a feeling the kiss was only because he wanted to respond to what had happened in the bathroom, and if we spent our time constantly responding to each other's slight advances, we'd get a lot further than either of us should be going with the other. Although, that kiss, it felt comfortable and it felt like we knew each other a bit more that way. "It wouldn't have been a good thing if they had started a scene."

I paused a second before I echoed a stuttered, "Y-yeah." I didn't know what to say anymore. That hint of romance was terrifying, but I wanted to see it. I kept telling myself I couldn't do that, that I had loved Fara and I just left her and I was devastated to find out I had left her with my kid. It's not like I could ever look her in the eye again after what was about to happen. Being around Wolf made me forget those responsibilities a little though. "You're a terrible influence," and I took another drink before I stood.

I started to make my way towards the back of the room, scanning the area. The optics were already starting to bother me, and every object I spotted of note flashed a bright light in my vision. I squinted just to make out what they were out of reflex, but they were color coded. Electrical currents were marked by yellow, so a bright flash of yellow when I found a camera was entirely unwelcome but happened every time.

I looked directly at the ceiling, catching a pink glimmer in the air above and watching the chandelier just to look like I was only looking up out of curiosity as I took another drink. There was a ventilation system that ran above the room and it was connected to an area out of the room, extending out towards the central area. What little I could trail seemed to go towards the pool, so we may have another way to get in.

I took another sip of the drink, feeling the acrid taste catch my tongue and steal away some of my inhibitions. I sat back down at the table, "We should get a look at the pool and see if we should stay the night here," I said. We had to be careful about what we said, some of the cameras were audio and even if they weren't, a guest could always just rat on us for no reason other than a few minutes of fame. I ha had less than half of the glass left, and I chugged it. Wolf and Leon had finished theirs already and I set it on the table before I started to walk out of the bar. If we drank too much, we'd get messy and we could slip up.

As I hit the central hallway again, I drifted my gaze up and caught the trail of the ventilation system. It trailed into the public restrooms that were in that hall. "Let's go see," I said, gesturing down the hall, "Maybe we can get some more alone time before we go to the pool." I gestured towards the bathroom and Wolf just about burst out laughing, but the chuckle he'd managed was good, it was natural.

As far as I could tell, there was no security camera that hit these doors, at least not consistently. There was one positioned at the end of the hall for the pool that scanned between two hallways. It moved slow enough that it would be reasonable for someone's entrance to be seen, but not their exit. Of course, we'd be caught eventually because they would realize that, but it wouldn't look any worse than the fact that guards had seen us going into there in the first place. We couldn't afford to wait until the night and try to hit it when there were less people, because then all the people staying overnight would be in the bar and it'd be worse. There was nothing we could do perfectly here.

Once the camera had started to turn and we were out of its view, we started forwards towards the door, the three of us, and I turned and grinned at Wolf for a second, just in case anyone was watching, and I started to run. It was 20 feet until the door, and we had only a handful of seconds to get there. "Get back here," came from behind me, and Wolf was soon jogging and so was Leon. I threw the door open as I reached it and disappeared within, Leon and Wolf soon following. Once they were in, I let out a pained grunt, my head throbbing from the lens, but I had to keep going and I found the entrance to the ventilation.

"There's no security system on the vent," I said, and I stumbled for a second before I caught myself and started to try and regain control of myself. It was tough, but the side effects were mounting. The headache turned to a migraine and I was hallucinating even though I hadn't taken the lens off. I opened my jacket and it revealed the contents of my bag from earlier, all hooked into various strings and pockets that were present on the jacket for operations like this. I found the army knife and pulled it free from its position before I flicked through and found a screwdriver, popping the ventilation cover ff before I undid the screws for the grate.

Wolf was at my side, his hand sliding up my side in a touch that I wasn't ready for, but I just shivered as the chills raced. My hand twitched and then I pushed him away, looking over towards him. "Are you gonna be okay?" he asked. I wasn't, the lens was only supposed to be worn in 15 minute intervals and I had already passed that by at least 5 minutes. I was dizzy, I could puke, but we were on a time table because the guards had a rollover period in about 20 minutes. It meant that the room just outside his office, where the service elevator would arrive, would be empty for a few minutes as the new guards had to wait for the elevator we used.. We could get in and conceal ourselves before the guards had any chance of responding properly. They would die too, then we would be free from this game.

"No," I said, and looked at him. He didn't look right, but I couldn't put my finger on it, "But we have to finish this," he said. There was a hood that was in our kit, it had clipped onto my jacket and closed at the front. I pulled it over my face, hiding me mostly from sight as I cinched it shut and secured it there.

"I can wear the lens, Fox," he said, a soft murmur.

"The only other person here that can wear the lens is Leon. You can't afford to damage your eye, Wolf," I said. I was firm, and the grate cover was off. "We're on a short schedule, come on." I climbed into the grate, and I heard a whistle behind me. I couldn't even tell him to grow up before I started crawling. We were taught to army crawl for grates like this, so that you minimized the noise you produced since you dragged and pushed instead of propelling yourself forward with movements that forced you to lift your body. I did just that, and I could hear the echo around me but it wasn't that bad.

I was over straining myself, I could feel it, and I could feel the cool sweat that was starting to cling to my fur as I tried to repress the feeling that was washing over me and telling me to stop. This was tough, but after a little bit, I had managed to navigate us through the winding system and through until we had reached the grate over the service elevator. It had taken 15 minutes, but we were resting so close to our next step.

It was then that I realized just how bad I was getting. The grate was relatively plain, it seemed long, but it wasn't something that freaked me out. . . looking down to the room below was a little more freaky. The tiles slid and melted, a pool of cool liquid below. It shifted like waves, and my ears flicked as I heard the crashes that it brought too. The door could never open to the growing tide, it was dangerous, and the elevator looked like it was being damaged by the flow. I winced. It wasn't real, that was a floor.

I froze, though, and I could see the outline of a security camera immediately below me. I reached into my jacket, trying to find anything that could handle that without opening the grate. We couldn't open it yet. The wires weren't running through the vent, they were most likely separated to avoid damage from pests, and I eventually realized that there was only one real way for me to handle it. I took my gun out and I counted down in my head through the next 3 minutes, so there'd be a minute and a half until the guards swap and our opening would happen.

I crawled a bit further forward and angled myself, taking a quick shot at the cord on the camera and cutting its connection. The burn from the blaster would land on the wall. The cameras should be run through a security room that's located near the front desk. It wouldn't take them long to notice, but it would take longer to respond. My vision went white for a second, and I was brought back when I felt a shove to my boot. I heard the door close, the guards were switching over, and I slammed the grate down as I full on fell from it, not able to stick the landing. I rolled out of the way as Leon and Wolf followed me, and I stumbled into the elevator, but the side effects were worsening.

I went to press the button for the elevator to close and go, but I missed the button as my body lurched a bit. The ground was moving again, whispering as it started to wrap my feet. I couldn't move, it was getting worse, but I started to lift my feet as the red rug below ripped and clung to my feet. I stumbled again, but someone else had gotten the button and if it weren't for the growing red roots that had caught my feet, I'd have fallen when the elevator stopped. I felt a push at my back and I stumbled forwards, I was free, but I couldn't see what I was even walking on anymore. The room was so dark, the only thing that was at the other end was a hallway. I knew it wasn't real, the images were too different to even be reasonable if I'd been high, but they were there and they were tormenting me.

The rollover for the shift would take about a minute and then they'd be up. The security protocols on Zoness were pretty uniform. Expecting more from employees could result in jail time, which was almost hysterical on Zoness since most everyone was a criminal of some sort, but employees gave the bare minimum they needed to get through their job. I about fell, but we each stood at the door, and I gestured for them to open it.

Once the door was open, I didn't even think about anything but my shot. The lens corrected it, it jolted me as I straightened my arms and I took a shot, and it soared through in a bright explosion of red until it cut down the man across the room. Blood caught the window behind him, but I couldn't bring myself to move. We were supposed to go in and conceal ourselves, take out the guards once they came in, but I couldn't do it, I couldn't move. "Fox?" it was etherial and I tried to turn, but that didn't seem to work either.

"Fox?" the voice repeated itself, and I turned and looked. The darkness that was consuming me seemed to consume everyone around me. I could hear his voice, I knew it was Wolf, I was sure if I could reach out, I'd be able to touch him. My arms didn't move in that direction though, they resisted as if I'd lost control of them. That was a possible side effect, I think, loss of motor control. I should've fallen and been caught by one of them, but my body refused even that pleasantry for just a moment longer than I wish it would have.

The sounds surrounded me, then I felt something touch me, my body reacted as I suddenly collapsed. I couldn't move, I could barely breathe, and then I felt a hand at my eye and ripping the lens out. I screamed, the film that had been covering my eye ripping away as I tried to blink the tears away from the sudden shock of pain. It rooted itself on your eye so it didn't shift, and once removed, it felt like you had a layer of skin ripped off, but it was your eye, there shouldn't be anything to be ripped off. When I opened my eyes again, I could feel it setting in. The room was darker than it was before, and growing, and as I looked around, all I could catch were ashy silhouettes of my squadmates and when I tried to touch them, they broke to pieces. I could still hear them, their mouth was still their, floating and out of my reach. "Move it, Fox. If you stay there, you'll get killed."

I didn't know what to do, I couldn't figure out what was happening, and I suddenly broke into a sprint. I wasn't trying to run away, but my body did it anyways, I still didn't have control. I don't even remember thinking about it, but I felt my body break the window that her father's glass had decorated and the air that I was suddenly caught in burned my flesh, or burned the cuts I had gotten on the way out. I heard a scream from behind me, but I knew I could do it, and I pulled a grappling rifle from my jacket. The building had been 60 stories, I could feel the ground rapidly approaching, but I fired and I was suddenly yanked across the street and through the third story window of another building.

I still couldn't figure out what was going on, but I could feel eyes on me. I was covered in blood, I could smell it, and a lot of it was his but some of it was mine. I wrapped my body in my jacket quickly, not sure who had a chance to recognize me, and as I ran, I hit every door and wall on my way out. When I made it across the hall, I realized I couldn't find an elevator in time before I turned my body and broke through another layer of glass. This time, when I fell, I fell into an alley. I had some good luck, I didn't hit the ground, instead landing into a large dumpster. It reeked, but I hadn't broken any bones. I closed my eyes and held them as shut as I could get them, my vision couldn't be trusted anymore.

I had to move, I couldn't stay still, and when I broke from the dumpster, I could hear commotion in one direction. I turned and ran in the opposite, and I never took a break to stop, to figure out where I was or where I was going, but I was panicking, and I could feel my heart beating a mile a minute. When I finally reached a destination, it wasn't what I expected because there wasn't ground beneath me anymore and I was falling again until I felt the hot waters of Zoness surrounding me. They stun against my wounds, and I wanted to scream, but I floated there, kicking and flailing against the water as I found shadows, the water cooler and I kicked around to figure out where it was from. . . a dock. I clung to the pole and began to shimmy up the pole until I was mostly above the water.

I didn't know what to expect, what was going to happen, but getting out of the water was just about as bad as staying in. I clung to the pole, my eyes opened, and it was terrifying all over again. My eyes caught sight of a bottomless darkness beneath me, black and inky and creeping as it crawled along the wooden pole. Yeah, the vision wasn't good yet, I closed my eyes but I could still see it and it didn't seem to make me feel any more comfortable to keep telling myself it wasn't real.

I felt a hand at the back of my neck after 10 or so minutes and I went limp as I was ripped from the pole. I heard screaming, screaming was good. "What the fuck?" I mean, probably good. That was Wolf, I think, and I extended a hand. I felt another hand close over it and I was being led to some form of safety, or a prison, hopefully safety. The fact that the walk quickly turned into a run and I was suddenly in a dark room. . . alcohol, it was Wolf. It was someone that wasn't taking me to jail.

My body crumpled back to the floor as I felt a hand crash against the side of my head. I started coughing, and when I opened my eyes, my vision was better. I'd gotten hit hard enough to put my head back on straight for a little bit, and I looked up. He looked like my dad, and I started crying uncontrollably, sobbing as I just sorta sit there. It was a bar, there was no one else there except the bartender right now. I was pulled back to my feet and into a hug.

I couldn't handle the smell that hit my nose, hickory and sandalwood. It was his scent, the scent that clung to all of his collars as he sprayed a soft cologne to make sure he smelled distinct. Fox musk only naturally mixed with wood scents, and his dad had always worn them, they were always so distinct and so nice. I tried to push, I tried to find my might to break away again. I wasn't dead yet, but I couldn't fight anymore and I felt myself slipping into sleep and that scared me horribly. Sleep couldn't bring anything good to me right now.

The explosion consumed me. Andross fell back into the void as my ship rocked. He screamed for my life, "If I go down, I'm taking you with me," and the walls around me shook with a terrible force. A massive explosion caught my ship, the systems started to give out. The next hit sent me jerking forwards, I hit the glass of the cockpit and stars flew across my vision. I could taste blood, I could taste death on my lips and white started to crawl into my vision. Everything was gone and in that void, I could feel my father so close.

"Don't ever give up, my son," and it returned. It was his voice. I knew this script.

"This isn't real," I said. I refused the script. I was stronger, I don't know how, but as the light started to dissipate around me, I saw his ship, I saw my hands move in their decisive action to save my life and I started to follow the ship. The darkness that was consuming me was hard to navigate, and I pulled into the tunnel in front of me. I wasn't even sure his ship was in front of me. "You're not real. How could you still be alive? How did you get to me?"

"Fox, we have to get out of here." My eyes widened, my vision was still foggy, but that wasn't the script. His voice was distinct, but it didn't feel right. "Fox, follow me, we have to get out of here. The base is coming down." The corridor in front of me caught flame and I pushed through it, the Arwing was giving in. The ship turned sharply towards the side, "Stay close, I know the base. The defenses blew out certain corridors."

I felt my ears pin to the top of my head. I followed him, even though my body was screaming to just give up and to stop flying, to dip into the corridor and go up in a bloom of flame. I gave in to the motions and eventually, I emerged from the blast door. The ship was gone, but this was different. As I emerged, I felt silence creeping over me. They asked if I was okay, but I wasn't, and we started our way back to the ship.

–

I stood there and looked over her. She was still beautiful, but she was cold. I looked down for a second, and I could see a younger version of me, bright green eyes and a bright smile. That's how I used to look before the war had started, but the world wasn't any better of a place out of war. People still died. "I'm sorry," I said. People did still die.

"Not in front of Marcus," and the name sounded right, but he didn't seem to care about what we were saying. He had found a model toy of an Arwing somewhere, he was flying it around, and I leaned down and scooped him up into my arms and lifted him before propping him on my shoulders. He was light as a feather. Her eyes were so tired.

"How's the academy?" She looked happy for a moment, but in a sad way if that made sense. Her eyes hung but they still glittered with hope.

"I stepped down after my 2 years," she said, and it made it sound like 2 years would be a tradition.

"Oh?"

"Jinx is taking over the program." We both smiled. She was such a sweet girl and she cared so much about getting through it and making good on all the expectations everyone else had of her but she should never have had to try and live up to our expectations. She should've just been living up to her own.

A silence crept over us, I didn't know what to say. I looked at her, and she just looked more and more happy by the moment. I murmured another, "I'm sorry," and I brought Marcus back down to the ground and set him there. She looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"Farewell, Fara." Those words meant so much more than 'Goodbye.'

–

My vision caught a bit and I turned, and in the darkness of the room, I could see his frame. He was sleeping so soundly, he didn't even snore. I don't know why I knew that, but he had taken off the eye patch to sleep and I couldn't help but stare at the scar that was left there. The sun had risen, though, and I leaned over and kissed that soft flesh in respect for what he had experienced. He stirred and I trailed another kiss to his lips, he just scratched his bare belly and stood from the bed. He pulled his pants on and stretched against the spanning glass that exposed the bright flames of Solar in the distance.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked, but I should've asked him first. I woke up first. He turned a little bit, and he was there and he was beautiful. His body looked like mine, but thicker. Scars decorated his flesh here and there, he was more seasoned than I was. I laid in the bed, the bed pulled around me as my tail flicked lazily behind me.

"Mmm, of course, you were there," I said, and I gave a soft smile. I stood and I couldn't help but take my time getting dressed before I started towards the door. "Do you want to go grab something to eat really quick and then we can figure out what we want to do today?"

He smiled a little bit, shuffling around through a pile of clothes and sniffing each of them until he found a shirt that was decent enough to be seen in. He pulled it on, but it was mine and it was snug as hell on him. "Shit," he said, and we both laughed.

"You only put it on because it smells like me," I said, and he gave a little shrug before he left the room still wearing it. He looked nice in it. "Just don't rip any seams," I said, and then we opened the door and I broke through the barrier.

–

I looked at myself in the mirror, it felt like so long since I had done that last. My snout had caught a touch of grey, the red fur rusty and cool after years of service. My face and body looked like Wolf's did now, not in fitness, but in the growing presence of scars. My eyes still functioned, I could see from both, but the vision was foggy and fractured. I could see a film that had developed from scarring. I had used the lens too often and too long and it had damaged the eye irreversibly. Similar damage was present in the other, I had continued after I had ruined one eye.

I brought up a comb and started to comb through my hair. There wasn't much, but I worked the knots out and I peered around the room for a moment. It was small, but it wasn't on a ship anymore, just comfortable. There were framed pictures on my desk. A young fox, like me. . . it must've been Marcus. Wolf was there, and I'm sure there was one of Fara at some point, but it was only the two of them. I had to get dressed, though, and I wasn't sure why.

I turned towards the door, my clothes were there. My heart sank a moment because the clothes were all an inky black and I knew that I was dressing for someone's funeral. I turned back towards the table and I could've only been invited to two funerals. I don't want either of them to be dead.

–

"He was such a fine young man. He wanted to go in his father's footsteps and he hoped to save the galazy."

"He was an immense asset in the Lylat Wars and without his intervention, we would've never won."

"He strayed after the Lylat Wars because he missed flying. We took it away from him to give him an opportunity but it turned out he didn't want it at all."

"Once the invasion began, we were all surprised to see that Star Wolf intervened immediately. They had bounties on their heads, but Pepper waived them to make sure that they could fight in the war. He had faith in Fox."

"Just a few years later, the next attacks came and Star Wolf had become a dominant force for saving the galaxy. There was no Star Fox, we put them to retirement early to give them comfortable lives."

"If we hadn't ended Star Fox, we would've lost valuable military leaders."

"Those leaders were all lost to some conflict or another over the years. Eventually, only one crew member was left alive from the Star Fox crew."

"The mantle of the galaxy seemed to always fall on this young man. He carved his own path."

I shook awake and my vision was clear. I could hear breathing, I couldn't tell where I was, but it smelled like medicine. I turned, and I winced because I was on a machine that was trying to keep me stable. I was covered in stitches, hands, chest, face, maybe legs and elsewhere. I turned regardless and he was there, just like the dream, bare-chested and holding me.

I rubbed at the scarred eye for a second, I was too nervous to reach out and kiss him for fear of getting bitch slapped or something of the sort, but he stirred a little bit. He looked at me, and he looked like a puppy when he saw me. "Did you sleep well, Wolf?"

His expression soured a moment, like he had remembered something. "We need to talk."

–

Author's Note: And we've hit dream sequences. This chapter was a little slower because last-minute things before I go back to school. Gonna go ahead and power through one last one before Monday, most likely, and that'll be on the longer side because it's exploring a major plot point.