Wolf scowled, picking at his handcuffs. It was demeaning, having to wear them. General Pepper had promised his team a full pardon thanks to their assistance against the Aparoid invasion, but until the pardon would be ratified tomorrow he and his crew had to stay in a Cornerian prison. His crew, and…

"What're you staring at me like that for, Wolf?" Pigma Dengar snorted. Despite having his body completely absorbed into a giant superweapon, he seemed none the worse for wear. Well, except for his skin being a purple tint.

"Disgusting." Wolf muttered under his breath. Thankfully Pigma had not been extended any pardon and would be spending his time in prison, though if it were up to him Pigma wouldn't be spending any more time alive, in prison or anywhere else. Best to spend time not looking at that worthless creature, so he decided to look around the waiting room instead. It was fairly simplistic, there wasn't much in there other than a desk, some doors, a painting of some flowers, and some chairs. Chairs that held himself, Pigma, and the other two members of Star Wolf, Panther Caroso and Leon Powalski. Just then the young officer at the desk spoke up.

"Next please!" The officer was a young dog wearing a blue policeman's outfit. Probably not long out of the academy. Too young to have had his dreams crushed. Panther stood and walked over to the desk. "Name and pronouns, please."

Panther chuckled. "Panther Caroso, he/him. I hope you're having a good day, officer…?"

"Oh! Officer Waffle. And it's been pretty good so far, thank you." Pressing a button on his desk, a blue and red ROB unit walked through the back door. "ROB 75, please take Panther Caroso back to his holding cell."

The ROB saluted and held the door open for Panther. "Affirmative. This way, Mr. Caroso."

Panther smirked and waved at his teammates. "See you on the other side, then." With that, he and the ROB walked through the door.

"Next!"

Leon scoffed and slunk over to the desk. "Bet you're thrilled to have this on your resume."

"I won't lie, it certainly is something to be able to say that I was the one who put Star Wolf in jail. Now, name and pronouns?"

He rolled his eyes but answered. "Leon Powalski, he/him."

"Thank you, Mr. Powalski." Officer Waffle smiled a genuine smile. Probably made Leon sick to see. Pressing the same button on his desk, another blue and red ROB unit walked through the door. "ROB 75, please take Leon-"

"Ughhh just get this over with already." Leon was already walking through the back door, forcing the ROB to hurry to keep up.

Pigma snorted a laugh. "Hey Wolf, watch this." With some effort, he managed to get his overweight body out of the chair and waddled over to the desk.

"Nex- oh! Name and pronouns, please." This officer Waffle seemed a bit surprised at how compliant everyone had been so far. Emphasis on the "so far", since Pigma-

"Pigma Dengar, and I'm an Attack Helicopter." Pigma chortled, seeming incredibly proud of this… non sequitur that he had spouted.

Officer Waffle blinked, a bit confused, but then shrugged. Pressing the button on his desk, yet another ROB unit with the same color scheme entered. "ROB 75, please take Pigma Dengar to helicopter's cell."

It didn't seem that the sentence had fully processed through Pigma's brain by the time the ROB was escorting him through the door. It finally clicked in his tiny brain, though. "Hey wait, what the h-" the door slammed shut before he could complain further.

Wolf laughed at that. "Ah, you're good. I'll give you that, Waffle." Standing up, he walked over to the desk. "So, is there a reason you ask for pronouns too, even when it'd be pretty obvious?" He wasn't sure why he was curious, but might as well ask.

"Well, it's mostly just wanting to make sure I'm keeping everyone's preferences in mind. This isn't a full prison, just a holding area, so there's no need to be too strict here. Plus in my experience there's no way to really 'know' just by looking at people. Whether or not it's 'obvious' I'd rather check and make sure." The officer shrugged. "People may present feminine but prefer masculine terms, you may have someone with neopronouns which don't really 'look' like anything, and with all of the alien species we interact with that don't even comprehend gender in the same way we do, it's best to ask." Picking his pen back up, he sat ready to write. "Speaking of, name and pronouns?"

"Wolf O'Donnell, and-" a thought flashed through his head. A silly thought, but… at least he wouldn't look as foolish as Pigma did. "-and screw it, any pronouns." Not like he really cared how anyone referred to him, right?

Officer Waffle nodded and pressed the button. There was the ROB, just like clockwork. Were these different ROBs or was it all the same one? "ROB 75, please take Wolf O'Donnell back to her cell."

Wolf's heart skipped a beat. "Wh-" The ROB was already pushing him through the door though. What… what was that feeling? He shoved it aside for now. Probably just was the weirdness of hearing that for the first time. Heh, he had said 'any pronouns', hadn't he? That's what he gets then.

The hallways were just as plain and sterile as the waiting room was. No windows either, but probably just a safety precaution. At the end of the hall, Wolf could see the holding rooms. Looked pretty simple on the whole, if the plan was to break out it'd be an easy matter, but all of this was just performance, really. Panther waved from behind his barred door.

"Not the worst jail we've been in, eh?"

Wolf laughed. "Nothing could be worse than Fortuna." The ROB unit pressed a button on the wall next to one of the cells and the door slid open with a hiss. Wolf walked in without making any fuss. The button was pressed again, and it slid shut, the lock clanking into place.

"Prisoner O'Donnell has been transferred to their holding cell." With that, the unit turned and marched off, leaving the three members of Star Wolf alone. Leon was silent, staring at the wall of his cell. Before Wolf could ask what was up, he noticed that Panther was staring at him.

"Their?" He raised an eyebrow.

Wolf shrugged. "After Pigma made an idiot of himself I figured I couldn't make myself look any worse, so I said any pronouns. Not like I really care what pronouns anyone uses for me."

Panther chuckled. "Any, eh? Just the standard he, she, and they, or does that include the more exotic pronouns?"

"Any is any, as far as I care. Just so long as it's not as stupid as calling yourself an… attack helicopter, or whatever Pigma said." With that, he sat down on the cot and made himself comfortable. Nothing left to do but wait until morning with the ceremony. The three of them would be free to do whatever they wanted…

At some point, he fell asleep. Wouldn't have been able to tell you when, but it was clear that he had when he was violently awoken by an explosion. Instinct kicked in and he leapt off of his cot and tried to grab his gun- though he had forgotten about the handcuffs and fell on his face. Ugh. Pulling himself to his feet, he looked around. That explosion was loud, so it had to have come from- the hallway. Glancing out he saw a giant smoking hole in the wall, a cargo ship floating right next to the building, and the distant flashing light of sirens, along with a Lemur trying to open Leon's jail cell. "What the heck-?"

The Lemur glanced up and saluted. "Cap'n Wolf, sir! It's an honor to be rescuing you and your fellow members of Star Wolf today, sir! My name is Algy, and- oh! There we go." With that he finally noticed the red button on the wall next to the holding cells and pressed it. Since these weren't really 'high security', the button controlled all of the cells, so all of the doors slid open. "Now come on! I've got an escape ship parked right here, and-"

"You what? Why? You're jeopardizing everything by being here!" Wolf was furious but stayed inside the cell. He noticed that Leon had already boarded the cargo ship and disabled his handcuffs, but it seemed like Panther hadn't left either.

Algy seemed confused. "Sir, I'm… you're being rescued?"

"We didn't need rescuing! In literally- what time is it?"

"4am." Panther piped in.

"In just over 8 hours General Pepper will be granting all three of us full pardons and amnesty, which would have let us do whatever we wanted. We'd have a clean slate to start from, including starting our mercenary business up again. Just this time we wouldn't have Cornerian troops breathing down our backs and tracking our every move. Do you have any idea what we could have gotten up to without needing to keep an eye out for troops and mercs looking for the bounties on our heads?"

"But… I'm here to rescue-"

"Wolf is right." Panther said, walking over to his cell door and pulling it closed. "Despite what you may have heard, it's not what we do that's illegal, it's just our targets and clientele." He chuckled. "We're not space pirates, young Algy. Merely mercenaries and bounty hunters. And there's no law in this system against that."

"Forget them, then!" Leon shouted at the lemur. "I know someone who will be thrilled to have you break him out of prison."

There were a lot of confused emotions in the Lemur's large eyes, but hearing the sirens getting closer he must have weighed his options and decided it was best to leave. "Well, uh, it was an honor to meet you, sirs. I'm sorry that we won't be working together, I guess." He hopped onto the cargo ship and it took off, staying low to the ground to try and avoid detection. At that same time, Officer Waffle and four different ROB units finally arrived on the scene.

"Stop right… uh… wha?" His blaster lowered slightly. "What… happened here?"

Wolf walked back to his cot. "Some kid thought he could be a hero by breaking us out, we'd rather pursue the legal option."

"If that's still on the table, of course." Panther added. "Though since Leon decided to run I doubt the amnesty option will still be extended to him."

Waffle turned to the ROB units. "Be sure and search the area, make sure there's nothing else. I've got things handled here." When they were gone, he turned back to the two mercs. "I don't entirely understand what just happened here, but… I'll be sure to report all of this to the general. If you two really didn't have anything to do with it then… then I guess you'll be fine? Who knows, if Mr. Powalski is still going to be out there maybe he'll want your assistance hunting him down."

Wolf laughed. "Hah! You hear that, Panther? We haven't even been pardoned yet and we've already got a job."

"No rest for the wicked, indeed."

As it turns out, Waffle was correct. Despite a slight delay and the ceremony taking place in a building that was damaged in the aparoid invasion, things seemed to be going normally. Well, until Wolf and Panther saw that it wasn't General Pepper who would be granting the pardons, it was an elderly lagomorph. "Is that… Peppy Hare?"

Peppy cleared his throat as he stepped up to the podium. "Due to the general's injuries following the Aparoid attack, he specifically requested that I be the one to hold the ceremony in his place. Unfortunately, that does mean you won't all get to hear one of his famous speeches, but on the bright side, we'll be done much faster." He turned to Wolf and Panther. "Thanks to your efforts in saving the Lylat System and assisting team Star Fox in their mission, all formal charges against you are dropped as of right now." Pressing a button on the podium, the handcuffs deactivated, falling to the ground. There was polite applause. "This ends the ceremony; I hope you all have a wonderful day."

"Well that was… short." Wolf muttered. Not that he complained, mind. It meant that he and Panther could head out sooner. "Guess we should go see about getting our gear back."

Panther nodded. Before he could say anything, however, Officer Waffle came up to the two of them. "Excuse me, I was wondering if the two of you could come with me? It's to do with your Wolfens. They're fine, for the record, but… well, Peppy can explain it better than I can." He led the two mercs into a side room where Peppy sat at a desk.

"Well, Mr. Hare… this is a surprise." Panther said, with a slight bow. Probably not completely sarcastic, but it was hard to tell in his case. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

Peppy chuckled. "Well, Mr. Caroso, I'm not sure you'd call it a 'pleasure' if you knew the entire point of this meeting."

"Oh?"

"Well, despite the two of you having no part in the breakout this morning, we can't completely ignore that you were present to two criminals who broke a high-security thug out of prison." Pulling up a hologram, he showed footage from the prison. "As you can see, your would-be comrades left the security station and went straight to the nearby prison and broke out Pigma." The footage showed Pigma Dengar sitting- well, sulking in his cell. Suddenly an explosion broke through one of the walls and knocked the pig out, forcing Leon and Algy to have to drag him onto the cargo ship. With some effort, it seemed.

Wolf's eyes narrowed. "Of course he would…" That must have been who Leon meant.

"Unfortunately, due to this series of events, we can't exactly… let you both roam around freely until we've conclusively proved the two of you had nothing to do with this. We're still having to keep your ships and weapons under lock and key." Peppy raised his hands, anticipating an angry reaction. "Now, I believe the security footage and Waffle's testimony, but I'm sure you can understand our trepidation."

Figures this wouldn't end up being as simple as they had all hoped. "Fine." Wolf sighed. "What do you suggest, then?"

"Well, having discussed it with the acting chief of security, we decided that the two of you will need to be kept under supervision for a period of time, no longer than a week. We're willing to not restrict your movements during this time, so long as the two of you don't do anything too suspicious." Peppy pulled out a folder and took a piece of paper from it. "You'll be staying at this address with one of our top graduates from the Cornerian Defense Force. Officer Waffle will escort you."

Wolf and Panther looked at each other, and then shrugged. "I'm certain we'd prefer it to the alternative," Panther said. "All-in-all it could be worse."

This was worse than the holding cell. At least in there he had room to himself. But now Leon was beginning to regret breaking Pigma out of prison. Not because of any moral objections, mind you, just because… because Pigma. The slob was just stuffing his face full of any food he could find on the cargo ship, completely raw. Some of it probably wasn't even meant to be food… but it's best not to think about that. He sighed and turned back to Algy, who hadn't spoken much since the escape. "So… what made you decide to break us out, huh? Just a big fan, or…?"

"Oh, I am the biggest fan, sir! Why, I've studied your famous assassination of the ambassador Ferdinand so many times. I still don't know how you managed to get such a perfect headshot from so far off without knocking off his hat!" The lemur hadn't looked away from his nav system, and seemed to be punching in some new co-ordinates. From what Leon could tell it looked like-

"Please don't tell me we're going to Fichina." That rubbish ice planet again… it was miserable for a cold-blooded creature like himself.

"Oh, no, don't worry about that. Well, yes, but that's just to pick up our sponsor. He's the one who hired me to break you out! Well, break out the entire Star Wolf team, but I figure two of the original Star Wolf team should be better than nothing. Hopefully."

Leon's eyes narrowed and he nodded. No telling who this "sponsor" was, but worst came to worst he could just kill everyone aboard and leave. Wouldn't be the first time.