Great Fox II
The medical bay of the old carrier was deathly quiet as Amanda put the finishing touches on a cast for Kronos' broken hand. Krystal meanwhile, was wrapping a bandage around Fox's head.
Kronos' gaze was fixed forward in what was known as a 'Thousand yard stare'. After Krystal finished with his bandage, Fox swung his legs over the side of the bed he was on and glanced in his teammate's direction.
"Kronos," the vulpine cautiously ventured.
At first, there was no response. Then Kronos turned and met Fox's gaze.
The vulpine swallowed and then began to speak.
"Look Kronos, for what it's worth, I don't look at you any differently. You're still my friend."
Kronos looked away and let out a huff.
"That might be true for you, Fox," muttered the Elite, "But I can't say the same for some of the others."
"Well, if it helps, Slippy was more shocked than anything else," Amanda stated.
Even so, Fox couldn't help but think of the looks some of the others had given Kronos after his revelation. It was as if they were seeing a demon in an Elite's skin.
In an attempt to reassure his friend, the vulpine said, "They'll come around."
Kronos shook his head.
"Whether they do or don't doesn't matter."
He held up his broken hand and told the others, "Listen."
Fox strained his ears while Amanda tilted her head to the side. For her part, Krystal leaned against the wall and crossed her arms.
After several seconds of listening intently, the trio could hear the faint sounds of popping.
"What the hell?" Fox asked with widened eyes.
"The bones are setting themselves back into place," Kronos explained, "I'm not going to need this cast in a bit."
Bewildered, Amanda walked a little closer to the Elite and saw that the bruises and cuts on his face from the recent beating were fading and healing. Slowly, but still at a faster rate than normal.
"I… I don't know what to say," the pink frog stammered.
"I'm a monster," Kronos murmured and lowered his head.
At that point, Krystal left her position on the wall.
"That's not true, Kronos."
"She's right," Fox put in, "You could have left me for dead on Venom or killed me yourself. But you didn't, you risked everything to help a complete stranger. That's about as far from a monster as you can get."
At first, the vulpine was afraid that he hadn't gotten through to his teammate. But then Kronos brought up his gaze, showing that he now had a look of conviction.
"You're right, this is a gift, not a curse."
"That's the spirit!" Fox said with a grin.
Krystal opened her mouth to speak, but then put a hand to her head as her senses detected the approach of malicious beings.
"What's wrong, babe?" Fox asked in a concerned tone.
"We're about to be attacked. Lord Synn's sons are among them," the cobalt vixen replied.
Outside, the green hue of hyperspace faded and the lights of distant stars could be seen.
"Guys, move out," Fox ordered as he drew his blaster.
Elsewhere
"He's a monster! We're all gonna get killed in our sleep!" Katt screamed.
"For the last fucking time, Katt! It's not his fault!" Falco spat back.
Meanwhile, over on one of the rec room's couches, Wolf facepalmed.
"Those two are going to give me a heart attack."
Glaring in the direction of the two former Hot Rodders, the lupine called out, "Hey lovebirds, either shut up or take that somewhere else."
Both Falco and Katt glared at the wild dog.
"Butt out, Wolf!" they both said.
Leon meanwhile, noticed out of the corner of his eye that the ship had come out of hyperspace.
"That's odd," the chameleon remarked, "We can't have reached Colony Alpha already."
Phantom was about to agree when he heard what sounded like wet footsteps outside of the rec room door.
"Something's wrong," the Elite said as he readied his plasma rifles.
He was quickly proven right when there was a bang on the door and a visible dent. The members of Star Wolf, MiLynx, Slippy, Falco, Radoven, Katt, Adrian, Fara, and Connie readied their weapons as there was another bang and an even bigger dent was made in the door.
"I don't recognize these creatures," Kaden said while putting his index and middle fingers to his temple.
No sooner had the blue vulpine said that, then the door was bashed down. Standing on the other side was a group of fish-like creatures with blue-green skin, glowing eyes that were green or yellow, and clawed hands and feet.
"Deep Ones! Open fire!" Phantom ordered.
The mercenaries poured fire into the creatures, but even though several of them were hit and collapsed to the floor in pools of green blood, more seemed to take their place.
As the mob of Elder beings advanced into the room, Wolf began to realize that their position was untenable.
"There's too many of them, we need to fall back!" the lupine yelled.
The others seemed to share the sentiment, for they broke from cover and retreated out of the rec room's alternate entrance.
Elsewhere
'I'm headed down a highway, got a suitcase by my side,'
'Blue skies hangin' over my head, I got five hundred miles to ride,'
'I'm goin' down to Memphis town, to play a late night show,'
'I hope the people are ready there, cause the boys are all ready to go,'
Within the cockpit of the blue Invader III, a sportive lemur with grey fur and red eyes and clad in a blue flight suit and a black bomber jacket bobbed his head to the Lynyrd Skynyrd number, singing along with the chorus.
"Well I'm a whiskey rock-a-roller, that's what I am! Women, whiskey, miles of travellin', Is all I understand."
A beeping from his console grabbed the attention of Algin Brian Hoffman, or Algy as he was known to just about everyone else.
"A distress call," the primate mused as a hologram of an old Cornerian aircraft carrier appeared on his scanner.
Algy's eyes widened when the craft was identified as the Great Fox II.
"Star Fox in trouble. This could be to our advantage," the lemur mused as he switched off his music and contacted the rest of his team.
"You guys seeing this?"
Besides Algy's ship, the squadron consisted of three other Invader IIIs and a Katinese KF-12 interceptor. One of the former craft was painted green while another was purple and the last one was khaki.
In the case of the KF-12, it was painted black with grey stripes on its swept back wings.
"Indeed we do, Algy," stated Rena Mouradian, a female coywolf with grey and brown fur.
Clothing wise, she was dressed similar to Algy, though her flight suit was green instead of blue.
Two other individuals, both male, appeared on Algy's view screen. One was Zeke Cairns, a vulture, and the other was Heinrich Zoll, a Giant Armadillo. They were both dressed much the same as Algy, with Zeke wearing a purple flight suit and Heinrich wearing a khaki one.
"Think we should take advantage?" Zeke said in a sly tone.
"I say we help them out," Heinrich put in.
"I agree with Heinrich," chimed in the fifth member of the team, a female dingo in a black flight suit and a grey vest. She was Carmen Sanders, a new recruit to the gang.
Algy put a hand on his chin and tossed the mental coin, finally coming to a decision.
"Form up, gang, we're giving them a hand," ordered the lemur.
As the quintet of fighters flew towards the carrier, Rena asked, "Are you sure about this, Algy?"
"Currying favour with Star Fox could help us out down the line," the primate replied.
As they came within visual range of the Great Fox II, Algy hailed the ship and was greeted with the image of a golden robot.
"Hey metal boy, you mind putting your captain on the line?"
"Affirmative," ROB droned, "Patching in Captain McCloud right now."
The robot was replaced on the screen by Fox McCloud, who much to Algy's curiosity, had a bandage wrapped around his head.
"Algy Hoffman," the vulpine said with a raised voice, likely to be heard over the sounds of nearby gunfire.
With a grin, the lemur responded, "Never in a million years would I think I'd be talking to you. Sounds like you guys are in a bit of a pickle."
"That's one way of putting it," Fox replied as he fired at something offscreen.
"Well, my coworkers and I are willing to lend a hand, if you'll let us."
It was pretty obvious that Fox knew of the Hoffman-Mouradian Gang's status as some of the most wanted outlaws in this part of the Milky Way, because he put his hand on his chin and his brow furrowed up and down.
"Alright," He finally said, "Land in the hangar, but don't try anything funny."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Algy snarked before cutting the line.
The quintet of fighters swooped around the Great Fox II before setting down in its hangar bay. From there, the canopies opened and the pilots hopped out, all of them armed.
In the case of Zeke, Rena, and Carmen, they all had VAR-77Cs, the compact version of the standard Venomian service rifle.
As for Heinrich, he was equipped with a VARSS-77, the squad support variant of the VAR-77 as evidenced by its longer barrel, bipod, and larger power pack.
Finally, in Algy's case, he was armed with a pair of KLB Spyder machine pistols.
Listening intently, the lemur heard the distant sounds of gunfire.
"Alright gang, let's move out!" he ordered.
Elsewhere
Fox shot a Deep One in the face as him, Krystal, Amanda and Kronos advanced up one of the Great Fox II's hallways.
"ROB, see if you can find the others on the security monitors," the vulpine said over his wristcom.
"Affirmative. Scanning through security footage,"
Krystal meanwhile, decapitated a Deep One with the sharp end of her staff and then froze another one solid. A two handed swing turned the fish-like creature into bloody chunks.
Turning her attention to a group of the Elder Things, the cobalt vixen unleashed a psychic wave that overloaded their thoughts and gave them brain aneurysms, resulting in them collapsing to the floor and briefly convulsing before lying still.
For their part, Kronos and Amanda found themselves facing what appeared to be a different subspecies of Deep Ones. Compared to their larger cousins, these beings resembled barracudas, with brown skin and large dorsal fins on their heads. And where the larger Deep Ones had two eyes, these creatures had several of them.
Amanda gunned down a few of the quicker and smaller variety, only to hear the click of an empty blaster.
"Get behind me!" Kronos ordered.
Amanda did just that while Kronos put one of the faster Deep Ones down with a headshot from his FN Five-Seven. However, another one nimbly dodged the bullets and leapt towards the Elite.
Time slowed down for Kronos as the being drew closer, enough for him to bat the Deep One out of the air, snapping its neck in the process. He then ducked as a larger creature took a swing at his head.
Bringing up his handgun, Kronos emptied the magazine into the Deep One, only to see another one behind it. Thinking quickly, the Elite hurled his empty weapon at the Elder creature.
Then, to his surprise, Kronos could hear his cast tearing and quickly glanced down at his hands. Small claws were growing out of his fingertips.
"Damn."
Bringing his attention back to the situation at hand, Kronos leapt towards the Deep One and began slashing at the fish-like creature. The Elder Being fell to the floor with lacerations all over its chest.
With the hallway clear, Kronos stood there panting as his newfound claws retracted. Glancing over his shoulder, the Elite saw his friends staring at him in shock.
"S-Sorry," he stammered.
Before anything else could be said, Krystal put a hand on her forehead and winced.
"The others are about to be surrounded, we need to hurry!"
Elsewhere
The rest of the mercenaries were fighting a running battle against the Deep Ones, a battle that was increasingly going in favour of the Elder Beings.
Wolf tossed the last of his grenades at a group of the smaller and quicker Deep Ones, watching as it blew them to bits.
"Gotta get to the armoury!" the lupine barked at the others, "Get some more ammo and better weapons!"
But even as Wolf said that, Kaden's senses began to pick up even more of the Deep Ones.
"They're everywhere!" the blue vulpine exclaimed.
He was soon proven right as more Deep Ones surged from adjacent hallways and bashed their way out of air ducts, completely surrounding the group.
"Yeah, we seem to be pretty fucked," Leon snarked.
Glancing upwards, Radoven caught sight of Maizner and Zarran Synn up on a catwalk. His eyes widened as their Elite forms twisted and morphed, tearing through their Republican Guard fatigues until a pair of Deep Ones stood in their place.
Maizner resembled the typical Deep One, but had more muscle mass, not to mention his torn tunic and trousers.
Zarran looked very much like the smaller and quicker variants of the Deep Ones, though much like his brother, he had more muscle mass than his counterparts. Aside from his torn uniform, the Elder Being also had red skin.
"Heh ha ha hah! Let's get 'em, Maizner!" Zarran cackled as he vaulted over the railing and jumped to the floor.
Maizner did the same and the brothers landed in the midst of the battle. As it happened, the older Synn brother landed in front of Wolf.
The lupine fired two shots at the Elder Thing and then heard the click of an empty blaster. Undeterred, Wolf lunged forward and stabbed the bayonet on his weapon into Maizner's chest.
But to Wolf's shock, the Deep One barely reacted to it. Maizner simply drew back a fist and delivered a punch that sent the lupine flying.
The last thing Wolf heard before his vision went black was Leon screaming, "BOSS!"
After Wolf hit the floor, Leon, Panther, and Connie formed a protective circle around him. Elsewhere, Zarran leered at Katt.
"You look tasty, little girl." sneered the Deep One.
Katt simply responded by firing her blaster at him. But to her horror, not only was she out of ammo, but Zarran's wounds were healing over.
"I admire your persistence. Ready to die?"
But before Zarran could lunge at her, Kronos dropped in between them.
"Leave her alone, Zarran," the Elite snarled, "Your fight is with me."
As Fox, Krystal, and Amanda poured fire into the crowd of Deep Ones from up on the catwalk, Kronos lunged towards Zarran and tackled him to the floor.
Behind her, Katt heard the sounds of gunfire and turned to see an avian and an armadillo shooting at the Deep Ones from behind. Likewise, Falco spotted two canines and a lemur firing at the creatures.
"Don't know who these people are, but at least they're helping."
Meanwhile, Kronos and Zarran rolled on the floor briefly before standing up and assuming combat stances.
"You chose poorly, brother," Zarran growled before taking a swipe at Kronos with a clawed hand.
Kronos brought out his own claws and blocked the strike.
"No Zarran. I have chosen wisely."
The Elite shoved his half brother backwards and then went on the attack. He managed to land a slash on Zarran's left arm, though the wound soon healed over.
Zarran then parried a strike from Kronos and slashed him across the chest. Much like before, the wounds healed over.
"Face it, Kronos. You are just like us," Zarran taunted.
Kronos' response was to attack with a flurry of punches and kicks that knocked Zarran off balance.
"You're wrong!" the Elite retorted, "I may be an Elder Being, but I am not one of you!"
Zarran recovered and lunged at his half brother, only for Kronos to catch him in his right hand. Using his left hand, the Elite bisected the Deep One.
Zarran's yellow eyes widened in surprise as his lower half was separated from him, before they rolled into the back of his head and he ceased breathing.
Dropping the corpse to the floor, Kronos took stock of the situation. Thanks to the arrival of the unexpected reinforcements, the others had been able to clear a path to the armory and restock on ammo as well as get better weapons. The result was that the crowd of Deep Ones was slowly but surely being thinned out.
Eventually, Kronos caught sight of Maizner, who was glaring daggers at him.
"You will pay for what you have done, traitor," growled the Deep One.
"I can't be a traitor if I was never one of you," Kronos retorted.
Despite his size, Maizner moved quickly, delivering a punch that staggered his half brother.
"First you, Kronos. And then your friends!"
"I don't think so!"
Kronos charged towards Maizner and began slashing at him with his claws. The Deep One was forced backwards, but soon threw another punch.
Only this time, Kronos ducked under it. Taking advantage of the opening, the Elite plunged his hand into Maizner's chest. As blood began to flow from his mouth, Maizner croaked, "You'll never defeat our father."
"We'll see about that," Kronos growled before ripping out Maizner's heart.
As the Elder Being fell to the floor and Kronos dropped the heart and began wiping the blood off on his jacket, he noticed that no Deep Ones remained standing. He also noticed Katt walking towards him, a pensive expression on her face.
"Kronos," she said before gazing at the floor.
"Thank you,"
"Nothing to it, Katt," the Elite replied and clapped a hand on her shoulder.
In the meantime, Leon took stock of the unknown individuals who had pulled their chestnuts out of the fire. He noticed a vulture, an armadillo, a dingo, and a coywolf before his yellow eyes landed on a very familiar lemur.
"Algy Hoffman," the lizard said with a grin, "It's been a long time."
"Yes it has, Leon," Algy replied while sticking a cigarette in his mouth.
"You know this guy?" Fara asked.
"Yup," Leon nodded, "Ran with me and Wolf in our early days."
Behind Leon, Panther glanced down at Wolf.
"Should get him to the medbay and make sure he doesn't have a concussion," murmured the wildcat.
"I'll give you a hand," Connie put in.
Together, the two of them lifted the unconscious lupine up and began heading for the ship's medical wing.
Descending down from the catwalk, Fox met Algy's gaze.
"I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say, thanks for your help."
The vulpine then put his hands on his hips.
"However, if you and your cohorts so much as swipe a sprocket wrench from this ship, I will gladly clear my schedule and hunt you down."
"Duly noted," Algy responded while taking a lighter out of his jacket pocket, only for Fox to reach out and snatch the cigarette out of his mouth.
"No smoking."
Raising an eyebrow, Algy growled, "Come on, butthead. Your friends would be fish food if it wasn't for us,"
Standing his ground, Fox retorted, "My ship, my rules. You don't like it, there's the door."
Crossing his arms, Algy grumbled, "Fine, I'll play along."
Later
While everyone else was cleaning up the corpses of the Deep Ones and throwing them out of the airlock, Radoven was on the bridge, ready to receive the transmission from Colony Alpha's control tower.
"We have entered communications range with Colony Alpha," ROB droned.
"Any second now," Radoven murmured.
Yet seconds soon turned into a minute, causing the Elite to become confused.
"That's odd, they should've picked us up by now."
After letting another minute pass, Radoven decided to contact the colony.
"Great Fox II to Alpha Control; Come in."
No response.
"Great Fox II to Alpha Control; Come in."
Still not getting a response, Radoven called Fox on his wristcom.
"Fox, I need you on the bridge."
"I'll be right there."
A short time later, the orange furred vulpine walked through the doors.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"There is no contact with Colony Alpha," ROB answered.
"No contact?" Fox said in disbelief, "But we're in range."
"We are," Radoven put in, "But they're not hailing us and nobody seems to be picking up,"
The whirring of the doors interrupted them. Krystal entered the bridge with a hand on her forehead and a saddened expression.
"Nobody will pick up. They're all dead."
"Exiting hyperspace,"
Out the front viewports, a moon came into view. But instead of the lush, terraformed moon that housed the colony, it was grey.
The same colour of grey as the dust the others had seen in the Kord Woods.
"Oh no," was all Fox could manage.