11:37pm - December 2nd
On the corner of Beatrice Street and Samson Avenue in Leavensbroth—a suburb of the Corneria City metro—Blitzen's Toy Workshop lay silent in the Ovenwood Shopping Center, as a light snow dusted everything in white. All of the holiday shoppers had long gone home for the day, the aisles dark and empty, the elaborate displays of the latest toys silent.
However, a falling ceiling panel in the backrooms broke the silence with a crash, a pair of combat boots appearing from the hole. Wolf O'Donnell dropped down from the ceiling, landing on the floor. He lit a flashlight and waved it around. Smiling, he walked to a nearby backdoor and unlocked it, opening it up.
Panther Caruso and Leon Powalski entered.
"Do we need to do this, Wolf?" Panther looked around with an annoyed expression at the dusty warehouse of toys. "I know we're criminals, but this feels beneath us."
"I concur." Leon nodded. "I don't mind tormenting my enemies, but something feels wrong about ruining Christmas for innocent children."
"But you like money, don't you?" Wolf turned back to them with a devilish smile. "We're going to make a killing on this job!"
"By stealing a bunch of silly game consoles and then scalping them online?" Panther crossed his arms.
"Exactly!" Wolf's smile got bigger as he held up a clenched fist. "The new Switchstation 7 comes out tomorrow, but there's going to be a big shortage. If we get out of here with this store's shipment, we'll be able to sell all the consoles for eight or ten times what they're priced here. It'll be the easiest payday we've had in a long time!" He turned his flashlight towards a shelf with a sign that said 'Video Games'. "They should be back there. Let's grab 'em!" Wolf ran full speed around the corner.
Leon and Panther gave each other a look, before shaking their heads and following after the lupine.
~X~
Outside in the empty parking lot in front of Blitzen's, a solitary car pulled into the closet spot to the front door.
Fox McCloud put the car into park, grabbing a thermos full of steaming hot coffee. He was grateful Krystal had prepared it for him. The store wouldn't open for several more hours, but he wanted to make sure he'd get one of the new Switchstations before they sold out. It would suck being in this parking lot in the middle of a cold December night, but if it was for his son, he'd put up with it. Marcus had asked Santa for one of those consoles, and Fox didn't want him to stop believing just yet.
Fox slammed the door shut, thermos in hand as he grabbed a folding chair from the trunk. After retrieving it, he made his way to the store's front door, looking around to see if anyone else was here. To slight disappointment, he spotted a tent pitched there. Oh well, second in line, no big deal.
But as he got closer to the tent, he noticed who was inside. Both were in sleeping bags, although he could see one of them was a bird with blue plumage, and the other was a toad with a familiar shade of green…
"Falco? Slippy?"
Both of them stirred from their sleep, looking like they weren't getting a good rest. However, they snapped to attention once they saw who was talking to them.
"Whoa, Fox?" Slippy asked. "What are you doing here?"
Fox grinned. "You two want your own Switchstations, I guess?"
"Well yeah!" Falco grinned. "How else will we get them?"
"At least I'll have company." Fox chuckled, setting up his folding chair next to them. He tried to get as warm as he could, although the cold relentlessly seeped in through his heavy coat and multiple layers, snowflakes landing on him. "You guys are smart. You brought a tent."
"Already been here since yesterday," Slippy yawned.
"And I thought I was dedicated." Fox sipped from the thermos, glancing through the store's front windows. There wasn't much to see with the lights inside turned off, though.
Except for the flashlight beams moving around inside.
Surprised, Fox jumped out of his chair, looking closer. Might just be a security guard, but three of them together? And with the way the beams moved, whoever was in there was frantic and in a hurry.
"Guys…" Fox said. "Get up. I think somebody on the naughty list is in there."
~X~
Leading Leon and Panther, Wolf ran through the front of the store, through the store's bicycle department.
The game consoles weren't in the back. How annoying. They already had a van at the loading dock. Would've been great if they could've moved the consoles straight from the warehouse to the van, but now they'd have to carry them across the store too. It would take longer, and taking longer meant a greater chance of being caught.
After sliding around a corner into the electronics department, he waved his flashlight towards the far end of the aisle.
There they were. Boxes and boxes of Switchstation 7's stacked on shelves all the way up to the ceiling. Reinforced glass doors protected them from theft, although it wouldn't be a problem for long.
"Work your magic, Leon," Wolf said.
"Of course." Leon pulled out a lockpick.
Panther brought up the rear, pulling a pallet jack behind him. "This is humiliating. I'm not meant for simple manual labor."
"Oh stop whining, Panther," Wolf rolled his eyes. "You'll feel better once you see how much these fetch us."
"Done." Leon swung the glass doors open with a smile.
"Let's get to work!" Wolf grinned.
The three of them grabbed the Switchstations off the shelves as fast as they could, loading up the pallet as high as it would go. Once it was full, Wolf grabbed the pallet jack's handle, yanking on it so hard some of the boxes threatened to fall off the top. Leon and Panther rushed to steady them, although Wolf knew they needed to hurry. They'd have to make another few trips between here and the van to get them all.
All the lights in the store snapped on, blinding them. Wolf froze, blinking a few times as his eyes adjusted to the light. Who turned on the lights? A guard?
Christmas muzak came on over the store's speakers. The displays around the store lit up, the toys activating as they did so. A toy train ran around a large diorama of a snowy mountain village. In another corner, a toy roller coaster ran around a track in a model amusement park as a Ferris wheel spun around. All the noise and movement made it hard to tell if anyone was approaching them.
"What do we do?" Panther whispered, as the three of them huddled around the loaded pallet, all of them scanning for the security guard or whoever it was.
An even worse sound came to Wolf's ears. He could hear a police car's sirens off in the distance, and it was getting closer. They'd only broken into the store ten minutes ago. How did the police get here so fast?!
Wolf turned a disappointed look towards the rest of the game consoles they had yet to take off the shelves. "No more time! Let's go!"
With the three of them pushing the pallet, they rushed through the maze of aisles to the back of the store, losing a box or two every time they turned a corner too fast, since they'd loaded the pallet too high. Wolf winced every time he heard another thump on the floor, knowing it represented more money out of their pockets.
Turning the last corner, the 'Employees Only' doors were in sight, leading to the van and their escape. They ran full speed for the doors, Wolf holding out a hand to push them open.
But instead of opening, Wolf ran face first into the locked doors, followed up by the pallet crashing into him from behind, pancaking him. As the pallet bounced off him and rolled away, it spilled more of the game console boxes all over the floor, Leon and Panther helped the poor lupine to his feet.
"Are you okay, Wolf?!" Panther asked.
Wolf groaned. Like a cartoon character, his muzzle got bent from running into the door at full speed and then getting crushed by the pallet behind him. "Do I look okay?!" Wolf shrieked, his voice muffled by his bent nose. He held his muzzle, and with a painful-sounding snap, bent it back into place. "Just get the door open!"
Sighing, Panther pulled out a blaster and shot off the door handle, pushing the doors aside. They rushed what was left of the pallet through the back of the warehouse. The police sirens in the distance hurried them onward.
Sprinting through the rear storeroom, they made it to the van and opened the loading dock's door. Aside from their heist getting cut short, all seemed fine. The police cars would probably pull up in front, but Wolf was planning to leave through the back alleys and out of sight. If they left within a minute, they'd make a clean getaway.
Panther rolled open the van's back door and shoved the pallet inside, jack and all, before slamming the door shut again. The three of them ran around to the front and jumped into the driver's cabin, Wolf taking the driver's seat.
But when he started the engine, a plume of black smoke erupted from the dashboard, covering the three of them in black soot and sending them into a coughing fit. They bailed out of the truck, as more smoke erupted from underneath the van's hood.
"What the heck?!" Wolf was still coughing, his face and clothes blackened. "This thing was running fine before!"
"W-wolf…" Leon tried to clear his throat. "We're not getting out of here in the van. We'll have to leave it behind."
"Leave behind our payday?! No!" Wolf tried to jump back into the driver's seat, but the smoke was too heavy for him to stay inside. He soon jumped back out, now hit with another fresh round of hacking coughs.
"It's useless Wolf!" Panther shouted.
Wolf snarled, giving the wheel of the van a kick. "Ugh! Fine! Let's go!"
They ran off through the alley on foot, leaving tracks in the snow as they fled.
"Make us a deal, Wolf?" Panther panted in between words. "How about from now on we just stick to mercenary work instead of petty thievery, eh?"
Leon nodded his approval.
Wolf could do little but growl at them, as they ran off into the snowy night. He was never going to live this humiliation down. It was even worse than being shot down by the pup and his friends...
~X~
Fox, Falco, and Slippy walked out the back door of the store's warehouse, looking at the ruined van with the game consoles inside. They all grinned at each other.
"Nice mechanic work there, Slippy." Fox smirked. "Woulda loved to see the looks on their faces when Wolf's plan blew up right in front of them."
"You had a pretty good idea yourself too!" Slippy laughed.
"Good thing this little cop was on duty tonight." Fox chuckled as he held up a toy police car he'd borrowed from one of the shelves. He activated the siren on it for a couple seconds, the same police car sound blaring around them. "The sounds on these things are awful realistic, aren't they?"
"Think we ought to chase them down?" Falco asked. "Footprints are still fresh."
Fox looked down at the fading footprints in the snow. "Nah, I think we've embarrassed them enough for one night. Also Marcus would never forgive me if I didn't get him his Switchstation. Let's let the cops handle it for once."
Actual police sirens echoed off in the distance, through the streets.
"Ah, speaking of… Guess we should greet them, huh?"
~X~
Several hours later, the snow stopped, and the sun peeked over the horizon, turning the sky a beautiful shade of orange. Several police cars gathered in the toy store's parking lot, cops milling around and collecting evidence. Meanwhile, Fox drove away with a smile on his face, looking down at the boxed Switchstation in the seat next to him. After the store's owner had shown up and heard about Star Fox themselves being around to stop Star Wolf from stealing their Switchstation stock, he happily gave away a console to Fox, Falco, and Slippy each as a reward. Not as good as the reward they'd gotten for shooting down Star Wolf in the Lylat Wars, but if it made Marcus happy it would be reward enough.
Thirty minutes later, he pulled up into the driveway of the modest little house the McClouds had made their home after retiring from mercenary work. Krystal was there to greet him at the front door, having sensed his mind as he approached.
Fox stepped out of the car, triumphantly holding up the Switchstation in his hands.
Though happy, Krystal's face turned to worry. "I saw the news report about what happened at the store. Are you okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine." Fox chuckled. "It was actually kind of fun. Definitely a lot more fun than just sitting out in the cold for several hours. Too bad I didn't get to say hi to Wolf and catch up with him. Kind of miss the guy."
"I'm just glad you're all right." Krystal put an arm across his back and brought him into the nice warm house. "Now come on, let's have some breakfast together."
"Of course, Krys."
~X~
A/N: Hope you enjoyed! This is my entry for the Foxhole Discord server 2023 Xmas fic contest. Have a Merry Christmas, all of you!