This chapter was a little tougher for me to get together just because I didn't like the way that the start of the chapter felt initially. I did get it together, though, and I have the next two chapters done as well and I'm editing them so that I can get them out over the next few days. I'm now on vacation, so expect more regular updates for the time being because I've got the time and means to get some content out. I'm gonna put together as many chapters as possible, and once they're edited, I'll be posting them most likely either every other day or every 3 days, based on how quickly I'm able to edit.

These next few chapters are going to be focusing on character development again. I don't like where Jinx's character is up to this point so I'm working on her, as well as the Star Wolf team as a whole. I hope you all enjoy~

–

It wasn't long after we were off the ground that shots came past our flank. There was something wrong with the idea of giving away the control of a battle to anyone, even if it was to Leon, Wolf, and Jinx. I didn't like playing the part of the bystander, but I would have to. Wolf veered easily away from the shots, and I was starting to turn my attention towards his display. I hadn't really had the chance to be in his ship, but the display was shifted largely to the right, while the left side had a compressed projection of the sky in front of them. The flight controls were incredibly sensitive as well, allowing for small motions to create large turns. Wolf effortlessly manipulated those controls as he peeled behind the ships that had followed him and brought them down.

I watched each little movement, each pivot and each manipulation. He took down ships with ease as we approached the atmosphere. The atmosphere would be a turning point for us, giving us the ability to fight without inhibition. The retreat that we were taking at the moment left us at a disadvantage. Wolf was somehow not taking any shots, but I could see Leon and Jinx both taking a lot, but that may have just been Wolf pushing himself to keep both himself and me out of danger of any form.

His careful weaving took down a small handful of ships before they fell back to the surface of Venom in a trail of smoke and flame. It wasn't long before the ships leveled out, the G-Diffuser system switching off in an easy motion. Jinx most likely was piloting an Arwing on the basis purely that she was a specialized soldier for the military, but often, the ships that were piloted by the military were significantly less powerful than the ships commanded by mercenaries.

The ships that the military invested in had advanced weapons systems, capable of cutting down and through shields of mercenary ships, but in reality, those advanced systems were pretty much identical to the weapons that the mercenaries used. They were expensive and required the ships to be cost-effective elsewhere, and that was attained by cutting down on the cost in the shields. The same weapons that mercenaries used often only took one or two shots to cut down one of those ships. I watched it happen over and over, as Wolf pushed himself to his limits and took down ship after ship with relative ease.

"Is everyone okay?" he said, the comms going live for the three ships now that we weren't in Venom's airspace.

"I'm fine, we're fine," came from Jinx, "Took some fire, but the shields are still operational." She sounded a little battered, but she seemed at least a little bit better from her hostage situation.

The sound from Leon's ship was a sputter though that was trailed by a line of coughing. "Leon?" I asked. He had taken a lot of hits when we had been coming for us. His comm went off, but his ship still seemed to move with a bit of sense. Leon was in with Bill, worst case scenario Bill could actually help manage the ship's controls, if Leon weren't okay, but he had seemed fine, despite everything. The adrenaline could've worn off and left him high and dry. "Wolf, cover him as much as you can," I whispered.

He nodded, and his arm lowered from the controls a second to brush along my thigh. When it hit inner, I felt my entire body shiver. My body instinctively responded by pressing backwards away from the touch, and I felt myself meld into him, and he wasn't a bad seat. He even laughed a little bit at me, "Asshole."

His hand returned to the controls and the motions were clean, slicing through the Venomian squadron, but Leon's ship was definitely more visibly fucked up in action. He wasn't dodging fire, taking a good chunk of it and a trail of white smoke was coming from his ship, even though he'd gunned down countless people. Wolf had done such a good job at dodging fire, too, but he put himself between Leon's ship and the incoming fire, deflecting what he could with a barrel roll and eating some of the other fire.

The lights within the ship shifted from the cool blue to a red, our shields were sustaining damage and I just sat there, watching forward. I didn't dare glance back, I didn't want to see Wolf sweat, not like this anyways. The comm came back on, Bill, "He's out, I've got it." The ship regained some composure, but the Wolfen's controls were foreign to me, and they would be to Bill too. The pathing cleaned up a little bit, but he veered out of the way of some of the incoming fire, sustaining less damage than had been before.

"Out?" came from Jinx.

"Like a light." We had two people down, then. Ferris was still not responding either. We couldn't stay in the sky for much longer, especially with Leon in the condition he had been in. When I tried to turn, to look at Wolf, I felt a twinge in my muscles. Everything was so stiff, and then it felt like for just a moment.

"Wolf, my body," I said, but the words were muffled by my jaw.

"What's the matter?" he whispered, and I felt the twinge grow stronger. My jaw wouldn't open, my lungs started shuddering as each breath was a struggle to get. What the fuck was happening? I didn't sustain any damage, I didn't do anything that should do this to me . . . it hurt, it hurt so bad, the air was turning to fire in my lungs and then I felt a sudden surge through my body, a pulse of electricity. I'd felt them before, faint tremors in my body but this felt so big. They'd started when. . . when . . .

–

Air rushed into my lungs as I drew from an induced slumber. The panic displaced whatever air I'd been breathing and I sputtered on the excess, coughing a bit. A nearby bed had Leon, patched up and sleeping. His breathing seemed stable, but I wasn't even in a gown this time, so I didn't even really know the nature of my injury. . . The device had to have done it. Andross' tech seemed to do a really poor job at leaving a body in good condition. I hurt a fair bit, but that's probably because what it was advertised to do was really just gotten to through a giant electrical discharge. Of course the cameras went out, but it was like getting struck by lightning. The adrenaline kept me going, but when it started to go, I started to lose it.

When I stood, my body ached, but it was a better ache than the last time I had woken up in the med bay. Jinx and Ferris were nowhere to be found, or Bill. If they'd been here they'd gotten out of it before I did, and I started my way out of the med bay. I needed to breathe a little, and I found myself wandering through the hall. I didn't want to to go back to my room yet, but went to the main floor that I'd arrived at. I passed the common room, a handful of people drinking on the couch but no one I knew. When I passed the pool, I peered in and saw that Jinx was still here, she was alone doing laps in the pool.

Rather than go in to talk to her, I kept my path to the docking bay. My steps were careful, quiet. If someone saw me, they didn't make a remark, and eventually I was in the midst of the wide array of ships. There was only one with accents of blue, my Arwing, and I walked up to it. Small moments like this, when I could drag my fingers over the glossy paint that had kissed the metal were nice. I found a nick, where a shot had sliced over it after the shields have fallen it. Those scars of battle left me questioning when and how. I saw a few that I recognized, a patch of metal resting on the wing just beside my cockpit. In the dogfight with Wolf, he had put a hole in my wing, nearly took me down, but we won. I traced a circle around it.

The other distinct one was the glass. This glass didn't break, it just didn't, you were more likely to knock the canopy off of its hinges than actually break the glass itself, but the ship I had gotten back had somehow gotten marked by someone. If a knife would cut, I'd have guessed it, but someone had cut a faint V at the base of the canopy. I couldn't even see it when the display was up, but it was probably dad, leaving a mark to remember her after Andross had killed her. I traced it with my claw, the groove letting it sink easily into the cut as I traced through it.

I let my head lower and rest against the glass, my breath leaving a slight haze over the glass as the cool touch of it spread over my cheek, sending a shiver down my spine. I heard a footstep in the bay, and even though I felt safe here, there was no breaking habits and I had turned, my hand on my hip looking for a gun that I didn't have. "Someone told me they'd saw you walking towards the docking bay. I figured you'd have left or something, but no ship left." My gaze leveled for a second, my dragging down my side to try and cover up the fact that I had been looking to take a shot, it was Leon, in a gown and covered in bandages.

I bit my tongue. I wanted to ask why he wasn't resting, but Leon seemed to do his own thing more often than not. Whether or not he should wasn't even up to debate, because the answer was pretty much always shouldn't. "How are you feeling?" that question felt safer.

"Sore, headache. I'm fine," he said, a bemused smirk on his face. His hand was over one of his wounds, a shot he had taken to his shoulder, but he wasn't wincing in pain, just dragging his finger roughly over the spot. Masochism wasn't an attractive trait. "What about you? You went out without any real warning," he said, grinning even wider, "At least I had gunshot wounds to explain mine."

"Andross tech sucks," I said, "I miss having Slippy just because his tech actually worked without the giant fuck you every time you used it."

"The frog's a fucking mess," he said, "But Andross was shit too. We don't need a research engineer." I flinched, his tone was a little harsh, but I didn't really push into it. Leon was still a big mystery to me, and pissing him off when I'd done well enough for him to talk to me right now wasn't a good idea. He was closing the gap between us slowly, each step careful, meditated, but his motion was detected.

"Slippy's the only reason I got my ship out of there. If they actually were able to recover any footage from that night, they'd know Slippy got her flight ready before I left. He's not together, but his heart is in the right place," I said. I don't know how he was closing the gap so fast, but I could see his eyes now. They were his eyes, but . . . they still didn't look right. I hadn't realized it until he'd done what he'd done on Venom. "What's. . . what's going on with you, Leon?"

His next two steps were rapid, and I was pinned against my Arwing. My arms went to push him off of me, but his tail wrapped over my wrists and tugged down hard. My balance went, my knees buckled, and I was on my ass, my head hitting the lip of the Arwing on my way down. "Nothing's going on. I'm fine, I already told you that." His tone didn't change, he didn't even acknowledge that what he'd just done wasn't normal. His tail loosened from my wrists and flicked behind him. He didn't really need to say anything, the message was clear, don't talk about it.

"I'm not scared of you, Leon," I said, but I was on my ass and he didn't need to give me another hint to still have the leg up here. I went to stand, he stepped back and let me do it. He wasn't scared of me either and he stood there.

"You should go talk to that girl you took the mission for. She wanted to talk to you when you woke up." I gave a nod in response to that, and Leon just smiled a little bit. That smile seemed innocent, but Leon wasn't all that innocent himself so I just found myself staring at him for a moment trying to figure out what the hell was going on in his head. I didn't know enough to even guess.

I stepped around him, he didn't move as I left, and I started my way back towards the pool. She was most likely still there, still swimming and trying to work through what had happened. When I got there, she wasn't doing laps anymore, she was sitting on the edge and letting her feet drag through the water, and as I opened the door, she turned towards me. She was in a slim one-piece, the natural stripes of her fur much more visible with her fur slicked down as the water pooled around her. "Fox. . ."

I realized I didn't really know anything about who she was as a person, but I could list facts about her life. She could list facts about mine, too. "You wanted to talk to me? Here's a chance."

She sat there a moment, kicking her legs. She didn't know what to say, I could tell. "Why?"

"There's a few things that that could be asking," I said. I didn't look to her to catch her expression this time, my stare was just making her nervous anyways.

"Why did you leave the academy?" That question was stupid, though, she knew the answer to that.

"I didn't want to be there. I'm not meant to be a part of the military."

"How can you tell?" she asked, looking towards me. That's what this was about, she wasn't sure if she should be there either.

"You can't really tell. I spent the start of my career in my father's footsteps as a mercenary. He wanted to be the kind that wasn't just a hired gun, the kind that was there to help people. When I took the mantle, I loved the freedom. It's not something you can tell, though, military life is comfortable and you have a stable income, that's nice too," I said. I gave a soft shrug, "I just know that I liked mercenary life more."

"Okay," she said, giving a soft nod at that. She was tasting that, but she didn't seem so desperate for a change to drop everything there and now, but it was something to think about. "Why did you join Star Wolf, then? They're hired guns." I flinched. She wasn't wrong about that, I'd killed Fara's dad in the role of hired gun already.

"It was the only other high-profile mercenary group other than Star Fox, and since Star Fox dissolved, Star Wolf was the only real contact I had or choice I had to go back. You don't survive going alone."

"You could've asked me. I'd rather see you like that than not sure how to see you at all." I flinched again. She was pointed with her words, she didn't really have the need to hold back either. I'd done a lot for her, but in her mind, I'm sure I'd betrayed her trust somehow.

"I wasn't going to ask any of my students. That would've made it so much worse, I wanted my ship back and taking my ship back meant defacing a military monument more or less. Or stealing it. Something worth a massively ridiculous bounty on Corneria," I said, and I ran my fingers over the bridge of my nose a little, "It would've just dragged you all in with me. Especially since I was doing something like that, something that was gonna get me a stupid bounty, I was gonna be better off going somewhere that actually had the resources to keep me out of trouble with my bounty."

She ducked her head for a moment. "Yeah. . . " she paused for a second, "Corneria, before I was sent for my mission, was having daily reports on determining your whereabouts. They didn't know you were in Star Wolf yet, but they'd had the report on your actions in Zoness as well. No footage, just the sighting of you, an interview by one of the people in the building you'd crashed into. People suspecting drug use, but I've met drug addicts before, I can't even imagine you smoking." I laughed for a second, Falco and I definitely had a bit when we were in the academy. I was a problem case there, but only because I had no desire to be in the military and they knew that. I found solace with Falco, and eventually Slippy.

"I don't think that's your sort of lifestyle either," I said, "But I know that they're talking about me, and a lot. They want to bring me in, I don't think you want to be involved in that."

"I'd probably get into some sort of trouble if they found out I'd spent time with you, to be honest," she said, "But you saved me, I'm not gonna try to turn you in." If she had met me otherwise, would she have? Probably, because we didn't know each other, that admiration she'd had for me wouldn't go far enough to save me from a firefight with a military squadron.

"Thanks. How's Ferris doing?"

"Him and Bill were outfitted with basic ships and already returned to Corneria. Because I had unfinished business with you, I stayed behind," she said. My eyes widened for a second, shocked that she would ever stay on this base without any sort of backup. She was brave to stay here, all things considered, but it wasn't the wrong decision either, I wouldn't hurt her, and while I couldn't speak for everyone here, I don't think Wolf would let anyone go after a guest of mine anyways.

"It was that important, huh? That can't be all you had to talk to me about, then," I said, looking at her. Her fur was mostly dry at this point but this time I stood and stepped away, towards the locker room. As .I suspected, there were basic swimsuits in a variety of sizes there, to be used and kept once used. I took one in my size and changed before I returned, slipping into the water as a sudden chill brushed my spine as the water rested just above my hip. "If this conversation is gonna take much longer, we may as well at least enjoy the water while we talk."

I wasn't the greatest swimmer, I didn't really have the desire to swim to begin with, I'd always been caught up in other activities, I'd never really had the opportunity to learn how to do much more than keep myself afloat. That's I let the natural buoyancy of my body hold me as I shifted to my back, body floating on the surface of the water as my knees dipped below the water. I heard a splash as Jinx slipped back into the water, and I let out a soft sigh as I heard her swim a little closer to me before she matched my position, hovering on the surface of the water. "Just, I wanted to actually get an opportunity to talk to you, to know what's going on because this may be the only chance I get to actually talk to you with some sort of freedom. I don't think that will happen again.

"I don't think so either. Your position doesn't really lend itself to having a lunch date with a criminal." The words felt heavy, but I didn't feel the burden that they carried like I thought I would. It wasn't bad, I could tolerate who I was for now until I learned to appreciate who I'm becoming.

"If there were stability in mercenary work, I'd probably choose it too, though," she said, wistfully, "The Academy spent so much time telling me I was wrong because the sims came back poorly and the tests came back poorly but no one ever actually paid attention to what I could do," she said, "The military is all about numbers. Whoever has the better numbers gets the job, and the only reason I have half decent numbers is you." Her voice was soft, a whisper that still managed to echo in this room.

"Someone was bound to see you. Fara already had, and she was starting to push for you."

"Ms. Phoenix's word had no weight there, though."

She wasn't wrong. Fara had been pushing for months and the best that she could do was get Jinx thrown into another program, not really anything that was a safe move for her. If anyone else had been leading that program, anyone else with a different frame of mind, Jinx would've flunked out of the Academy because she didn't fly like she was supposed to. "Yeah. . ."

"They even rumored that the only reason that you noticed me in the first place was because I'd slept with you." I froze. That had come up in Fara's interview that I'd watched as well. "Those rumors started in the months leading up to graduation, once the schedules for graduation had gone out and my name was in them as receiving an award. A lot of those people had been in class with me before, used to laugh at me when I messed up the curriculum or the simulation." It wasn't out of the ordinary, though. Younger teachers got accused of that sort of thing just because they were close in age to the students. I wasn't that much older than Jinx.

"That came up in Fara's interview," I said, and I heard her stand up then.

"You know she's pregnant, right?"

"Yeah."

She let out a soft sigh at that, "Did you know before you left?"

"No."

"Good." The silence was back, for just a moment, before she waded to the edge of the pool again and slid onto the side, starting to dry off. She was looking to leave, which wasn't all that surprising. It was about time for her to go, I suppose. "I don't know if I could forgive you if you'd left her while knowing. The way you left, though, you can't go back, really."

"I will, someday. I want to be there when she's in labor. I don't know if that means I'm gonna be forced to hold an entire hospital hostage or if she'll do it in privacy or. . . I don't know, it's complicated."

"It's gonna be complicated," she said, and she stood. "If I stay too long, you'll never get actual recognition for completing the mission. Bill and Ferris can locate this base now, too, so I shouldn't stay long enough that they want to come back. I don't want them to come back with more people. . . I do appreciate everything you've done for me Fox," she said.

She paced a little, the water slipping off of her body. As I stood and started my way to the edge of the water, I smiled a moment towards her, "I know that you don't agree with what I did, I don't agree with what I did, but I had to do something," I said, and I pulled myself up and out of the water as well. She crossed her arms over her chest. "You should go, though, I don't know the base well enough to get you a ship, I can get Wolf to help you."

She gave a small nod, "Thank you," and she started her way towards the locker room. I shook myself out a little bit, letting out a soft exhale before I turned towards my locker room. When I went in and went ahead to change, I quickly retrieved my comm and opened a channel with Wolf. It took a few moments before he opened his link and I turned towards the faint image of it.

"Good morning?" he says. I didn't actually know what time it was, but he looked like he'd jut woken up. Space had a tendency to do that, the days were only able to be marked by your own body's circadian rhythm, but there was no real way to figure out if your circadian rhythm was off. Even if you only shifted an hour every few days, your year was quickly thrown off because of it.

"Jinx is ready to go," I said, smiling softly, "I'm okay, too," I said, looking at the camera. He was out of it, him not asking wasn't a huge deal right now.

"Okay. Give me a few minutes. I can help her get a ship to go," he said. I exited the locker room.

"Thanks, Wolf," and I closed the comm link. I turned, though. That meant that Jinx had stayed overnight just to talk to me, maybe more than a day. She really did have to go, because every hour that she was here was something that was going to push them towards coming back to Sargasso. As I stepped back out, she was waiting there, back in a uniform. She didn't look unlike Katt did, actually. She would break some hearts when she decided to start going that route. "Did you stay over night?"

"Yeah, you weren't awake, yet. . . It's been 2 days, actually, they left yesterday morning." I was doing a piss poor job of handling these tasks and recovering afterwards. I'd taken so many missions and been able to sleep it off in 3-4 hours, but my body wasn't handling it as well. . . I guess when I'd first started I'd been like this too, I just had to adjust again.

"I'm sorry I was out for so long," I said, "But it was nice to talk to you." My tone was soft, I knew this was probably the last good interaction we'd have. I doubt I'd be in the good graves of Corneria any time soon. She gave a soft nod, and I heard footsteps behind us. I turned, there was Wolf. He hadn't really bothered getting dressed, just wearing a pair of black boxer briefs that hugged his hips. I blushed, but that topic had never come up in the conversation anyways, so I didn't feel the need to make it any more known than it had to be.

Wolf gestured towards the docking bay, and as Jinx turned and started walking, he planted a soft kiss against my cheek before he forged forwards. I followed suit, slipping down the hall before we were into the bay and I peered through the wide array of ships. Wolf walked down the line of ships before he came to one that wasn't currently in use, a refurbished ship from the Cornerian military. It flew straight, it had decent weapons, it was more than she'd need to get her back to Corneria, to be safe.

"Once I'm back, I'll push through the completion for the mission and make sure you get paid on time," she said, and she gave a soft sigh as she ran her hand over the ship for a few seconds. It was covered in marks, more than I had on my Arwing, and she traced through them before she whispered and the hatch opened. She pulled herself up and slid into the cockpit, latching herself in before she looked over the two of us. She smiled and closed the hatch, and we both stepped back.

My hand wrapped around Wolf's hip as we stood, close, her ship pulling up and away and I turned towards him, the look of happiness draining quickly. "What the fuck is going on with Leon?"

"What happened?

–

I feel comfortable with where this is right now. I'd had some doubts about some of the earlier chapters, but I'm looking to work on development. Leon is a big target right now, especially since Leon tends to be an enigma. Also, expect some dynamic between Wolf and Fox in the context of James as well as some more looks into who Wolf is and where he came from. Storytelling Wolf is best Wolf after all.