The vulpine watched as the bride, a white furred cocker spaniel, and the groom, a turtle-like Koopa, shared their first kiss as husband and wife.
At the reception, he chatted with the family and friends of the couple and was currently in conversation with two lynxes. The male had orange and white fur while the female's was mainly brown. Both had black spots dotted over most of their fur, black stripes around the facial area, and black tufts of fur at the top of their ears.
"So Kathy, Miyu tells me that you come from Hressa."
The female lynx nodded.
"That's right, I grew up on a homestead out in the desert.."
"I used to deal with Hressan traders back home. If me and my father couldn't find what the tribe needed in the woods, we got it in the city."
The vulpine scratched the back of his head.
"Actually, my father did most of the trading. I was more interested in getting into trouble."
The male lynx grinned.
"If you can think of a young man who doesn't do that, I'm all ears." he said.
The vulpine smiled sheepishly.
"I guess you're right, Ryan."
"Well Kaden, I see you've met my parents."
The person who had spoken was also a female lynx, who decidedly resembled Ryan.
"Sure have, Miyu." replied Kaden.
"Well, I suppose I should go see the bride. Nice talking to you two."
"And you as well, Kaden."
Some time later, both the vulpine and the feline were looking out at the newly wed couple and several other people dancing.
"You know Kaden, I've been friends with Fay since I was a kid. Pretty much from the time I was old enough to understand, I figured that I'd be the maid of honour when she got married."
"I'm sure she'll return the favour when you tie the knot."
The lynx nodded and finished her glass of wine.
The two of them were silent for a moment. Then Miyu asked Kaden a question that he never figured would come from her.
"Do you wanna dance?"
The blue-furred vulpine let out a small chuckle, but cut it short when he saw she wasn't joking.
"Seriously?"
The lynx shrugged.
"It's cool if you don't. We do work together after all."
Kaden gave a shrug of his own.
"I'll dance with you, Miyu. What's the worst that could happen?"
Thus, the two walked arm in arm onto the dance floor.
"Geez Kaden, this comes natural to you. Been practising much?" Miyu commented after they had been going for a few minutes.
Kaden noticed Fay and her new husband Dennis out of the corner of his eye, undoubtedly making remarks about him and the lynx. He paid them no mind, and replied to his dance partner.
"No, not really. Being observant about everyone else seems to do the trick."
"Betcha being able to read their minds has something to do with it as well."
"Yeah, that too." Kaden laughed.
For a while, neither the fox, nor the wildcat spoke. They just stared at one another. Miyu's blue eyes provided an additional contrast against her fur alongside her spots and stripes, and the white dress she was wearing showed off her form.
Then the two of them leaned in towards each other.
The moment their lips locked was the moment Kaden woke up.
"Gaah!"
The vulpine almost jumped back from his pillow, which was now partly wet from saliva.
"A good dream till the end." he said to himself as he turned the pillow over and layed back down.
Kaden had only one blanket, on account of the heatwave that had started two days ago. The weather forecasters had said it didn't look like the end was in sight. Then again, Krystal and several other people had said that the weather reports got things wrong half the time.
"Somewhere Dad, I know you're laughing at me for making out with my pillow."
Kaden could practically see his father's grinning face as he began to nod off. He was about halfway between sleep and wakefulness when a loud beeping filled his ears, causing his grey eyes to shoot open.
"Here we go again."
The blue-furred fox reached over to his nightstand and picked up the communicator.
"What've we got this time, Miyu?"
"The mystery woman on Venom."
"Seriously?"
"Yep. I'll tell you more on the way."
"Who's turn is it to drive this time?"
"Mine."
"Alright, I'll see you downstairs."
With that, Kaden ended the call and rolled out of bed. Turning on the bedroom light nearly blinded him. After blinking a few times, the vulpine picked up a gym bag with "Flight Gear." written on it, turned off the light, and left the bedroom. Finding his way through his apartment and over to the coat rack was no problem for the vulpine. He had been working with Miyu Lynx and Fay Miller, now Fay Grissom, long enough to get woken up in the middle of the night more than once.
Kaden threw on a white flight jacket over his black tank top and aqua pyjama pants and headed out the door, locking it behind him.
During the elevator ride down to the lobby, the vulpine caught sight of his reflection in the door and noticed that part of his left ear was missing, the result of three years of imprisonment at the hands of the Xenosian Empire. Aside from that, most of the signs of that terrible time were gone. The scars from the experiments had been covered by fur transplants, the teeth that had been knocked out during beatings had been replaced with implants, which Kaden could have sworn were real, and he was back to the muscular physique he had had on Cerinia, thanks to jogging and regular trips to the gym.
"Your body has healed, but not your mind. I can't cure you, but I can make this easier."
The words of his psychologist Dr. Carter echoed through his mind. Luckily, the elevator reached the ground floor, forcing the Cerinian to take his mind off the matter. He walked through the deserted lobby and out the door into the hot and humid night. Miyu's hovercar was already waiting for him. Hardly a surprise, on account of her apartment building was within walking distance.
The lynx had a very similar appearance to Kaden, dressed with her flight jacket over her white tank top and red pyjama pants and with her fur matted to one side from sleeping. The vulpine grinned at his teammate, opened one of the car's back doors, and set his gym bag on the seat next to an almost identical one. He then walked around and got in the passenger's seat.
"So let me guess, nobody got a good look at her, but they know she has purple hair?"
The wildcat grinned in response.
"Yeah, that's pretty much it."
On the way to Corneria City Spaceport, the two mercenaries discussed the Venomian Mystery Woman. For the last three weeks, she had been responsible for bombings and killings all over the city of New Providence. About the only things anyone knew about her were that she was a vixen, she was not affiliated with the remnants of Andross' empire, and of course, her hair was purple.
"I know I haven't been here long, but you'd think that this would be a job for SWAT or CTU." Kaden commented as they were nearing the spaceport.
"What makes you think they haven't tried that already? When a job gets too big for those people, but it's still too small for the army, that's where we come in." replied Miyu.
"I know, I know."
"Here we are."
Miyu pulled into a parking lot with a sign that said Military Hangers. Then the lynx and the vulpine grabbed their bags and headed in. The security checkpoints were much thorough than the regular port. Both mercenaries were subjected to multiple searches and retinal scans before being allowed into the hanger that stored their mothership. Kaden shook his head after they got through.
"Geez, I never get over how paranoid people here can be."
"Yeah, but you need it sometimes."
The two of them walked on towards their mothership, the Devilfish. Generally speaking, it resembled the creature that gave it it's name, and carried two plasma cannons, three docking clamps for the team's fighters, and torpedo launchers, a recent addition prompted by an encounter with a Xenosian patrol craft. The interior was as simplistic as the outside, with a minimal amount of furniture, a small kitchen, and basic sleeping quarters.
"Well, you know the drill, the one who drives here gets first dibs on the shower."
"Yeah, like you haven't been saying that since day one."
Nonetheless, the vulpine walked into the kitchen and loaded a k cup into the coffee machine. He could not help but steal a glance at Miyu as she headed for the shower. If the lynx noticed, she gave no sign.
Sighing, Kaden hit the brew button and headed for the bridge. Seating himself in a command chair, the kitsune place his hand on a scanner. After a few seconds, it turned green, confirming that he was authorized to operate the ship.
"Welcome Kaden, beginning pre-flight checks."
With that, the vulpine returned to the kitchen, by which point, his coffee was ready. He simply took a sip without bothering to add anything to it.
"I don't suppose I'll ever understand why people put milk and sugar in this stuff. Tastes fine as is."
His thoughts then drifted to the lynx.
When he had first met Miyu during his unexpected and harrowing escape from the Xenosian Empire, he had figured that she was pretty, in a tomboyish sort of way that is.
"Who wouldn't?"
But when he had started working with her and Fay, Kaden hadn't looked at the lynx as anything other than his teammate, at the most he saw her as a friend.
All of that had changed after Fay's wedding. Unlike Kaden's dreams, they hadn't kissed, but the fox hadn't been able to look at her the same way since. The feeling had only gotten stronger over the next week or so. Besides the dream, which Kaden had just about every night, Fay was still on her honeymoon and wouldn't be back for a few more days, leaving him and Miyu to hold down the fort.
"Yo, Kaden."
The wildcat's voice broke Kaden out of his thoughts. He glanced up at her, seeing that she was now dressed in a purple flight suit.
"I take it that it's my turn."
The feline nodded.
"I'll get us our take off clearance."
The vulpine gulped down the rest of his coffee and headed for the shower. It only took him a few minutes to wash up, dry off, and change into his blue and black flight suit.
Back on the bridge, he asked. "We ready?"
"Ready when you are." replied Miyu.
With that, Kaden seated himself in a command chair and strapped himself in. During the flight into Corneria's atmosphere, he had an argument in his mind.
"Come on mate, tell her how you feel."
"Not the time or the place."
"And if she gets killed on the mission?"
Kaden let out a sigh; as much as losing Fay or Miyu would bother him, they were his friends after all, one thing was keeping him from telling the latter that he was attracted to her.
A conversation he had had with his adopted sister.
He had still been in the hospital recovering from his ordeal when Krystal stopped in to see him. Despite not being related by blood, the two of them cared for and argued with each other as much as any biological siblings. Their conversation had turned towards Krystal's boyfriend.
"So how long have you and Fox been courting anyways?"
That provoked a small fit of laughter from the blue-furred vixen.
"Okay, what did I say that was so funny?"
Krystal shook her head.
"Nothing, it's just that it's been a long time since I've heard anyone say that."
Kaden raised an eyebrow.
"What do they say around here than?"
"Dating, or going out."
The vulpine shrugged his shoulders.
"Alright, to reiterate my question, how long have you two been going out?"
"Almost two years, more or less."
The frown on Krystal's face told Kaden that she hadn't meant to say the last part of that sentence.
"You okay Krystal?"
The vixen glanced about and shook her head.
"About two months after we started going out, Fox broke up with me and forced me off the team. He wouldn't tell me why."
Krystal lowered her head and closed her eyes.
"I don't want to dredge up the past, but let's just say I did a few things that I'm not proud of."
Kaden set a hand on his adopted sister's wrist.
"Don't beat yourself up, it worked out between you two didn't it?"
The vixen nodded.
"It turned out that Fox was scared to death of losing me. I suppose he still is. To tell you the truth, I don't know what I would do if I lost him."
Kaden also nodded.
"It's gotta be hard going out there, knowing that you could die, or see Fox or one of your friends die."
"I know, we're all like family."
The vulpine sat up a little in his hospital bed.
"How do you deal with it?"
"You look out for each other as much as possible and hope for the best. You'll understand that when you start working with Miyu and Fay."
"30 seconds to hyperjump."
The bridge AI brought Kaden out of his thoughts.
"20 seconds to hyperjump."
The fox and the lynx exchanged a look.
"10 seconds to hyperjump."
Both mercenaries counted off the remaining seconds in their heads. Soon, the Devilfish was surrounded by the blue hue of hyperspace and it's two occupants were shoved back into their seats.
For several minutes, the ship seemed to be travelling through a tunnel of blue light, then it faded and was replaced by Venom. The world from which the mad scientist Andross had directed his assault on the Lylat System now looked very similar to Corneria, thanks to a terraforming and colonization effort by his grandson.
"You know Kaden, I still can't believe that Bowman's turned this place around."
"Yeah, I've heard about how much of a dump this planet used to be."
With that, Miyu placed the Devilfish in orbit and her and Kaden headed down to their fighters. After running through his pre-flight checks, the vulpine tested the comms.
"Read me, Miyu?"
"Loud and clear."
"Everything checks out on my end."
"Same thing here."
With that, the two mercenaries powered up their engines and detached from the Devilfish. As they entered orbit, a male voice came over their comms.
"Venom CTU to MilLynx, Venom CTU to MilLynx. Come in please."
"Read you, CTU." Miyu answered.
"MilLynx, we've set up a waypoint for you. You should be receiving it now."
Kaden looked down at his HUD and saw the waypoint download onto it.
"Received CTU. What kind of backup can we expect?"
"We have some units on standby. Other than that..."
"We're on our own." Miyu finished.
"I'm afraid those are my orders." said the man on the other end.
"We've lost good people to this woman." he added.
"I understand." replied the feline.
Kaden found himself nodding. CTU was probably suffering what people in Lylat called a public relations nightmare. Along with Miyu, the vulpine followed the waypoint planetside. What the duo came upon was a huge expanse of abandoned military style complexes on the outside of an even bigger city.
"The old city, I remember this place."
"You've been here before?"
"Not exactly, I flew escort for bombing missions over it during the Lylat War."
"Oh, I see."
They landed in the parking lot of an old tank factory. Both emerged from their cockpits with weapons drawn. When no gunfire greeted them, the two mercenaries glanced over at one another.
"Well Kaden, do your stuff."
The vulpine nodded and placed his index and middle fingers to his temple. Using his telepathic abilities, Kaden reached out with his mind and searched the abandoned area for any living presence. He soon found it, but when he zeroed in, he suddenly felt like he was being electrocuted. The vulpine quickly broke the link with a small cry of pain.
"Kaden, what is it?"
"I don't know, I never get these vibes from anyone here. It's almost as if..."
The blue-furred fox turned and looked at the wildcat's concerned expression.
"Almost as if this woman is a Cerinian."
Miyu's expression went from concerned to puzzled.
"That can't be. You and Krystal are the only ones left."
"Apparently not."
The lynx shook her head.
"We'll just have to be extra careful."
"Right. On the up side, if me and Krystal can't read your mind, than neither can she."
Miyu nodded in response and then said. "Let's get moving. Did you figure out where she was?"
"Yeah, over at the academy."
While the two mercenaries began to cautiously move through the abandoned city, a figure in the academy looked down upon the scene. A sadistic smile crept up on her face.
"Heh hah ha ha, come, my prey."
In the meantime, Miyu and Kaden had reached an alleyway nearby.
"So, how do you wanna go in?" asked the vulpine.
The feline was looking down at her PDA.
"According to these blueprints, there should be a side entrance dead ahead."
"That's assuming these plans are right, which they're likely not." she added.
Kaden only nodded in response.
"Kay, on three, one, two..."
Both mercenaries prepped a smoke grenade as they got ready to run.
"One."
With that, both of them tossed their smoke grenades out onto the street. The mercenaries then charged across. They found themselves having to hit the pavement as several red lasers streaked through the smoke, though there was no sound of gunshots. Kaden fired his plasma SMG in the general direction of where the shots had come from, though he had little to no chance of hitting anything.
"C'mon Miyu, she's retreating."
The vulpine and the wildcat ran in a crouch to the side of the academy, where it turned out that the blueprints on Miyu's PDA were correct.
"Perfect. Kaden, cover me while I breach this door."
"Got it."
The fox covered the lynx as she delivered a strong kick to the door. That proved to be all she needed to breach it. Both of them entered the academy, waving their weapons in every direction. As it was, there were no hostiles to greet them.
"Any idea where she is Kaden?"
"Sixth floor."
The climb up revealed six floors of dilapidated hallways, classrooms, and lecture halls. Anything valuable, useful, or what Kaden had heard people in Lylat call "collector's items" had been looted by the cadets in the last days of Andross's Venom or taken by scavengers in the following decade. When they reached the sixth floor, the already cautious mercenaries became ever more vigilant. Miyu walked a little ahead while Kaden covered the area behind them. The vulpine, already fully alert, suddenly felt a prickling sensation crawling up his spine, causing his fur to stand on end.
His hand came up seconds before the garrote wire would have wrapped around his throat.
Miyu heard the commotion and swung around with her weapon at the ready, but she was unable to get a good shot since their quarry was almost directly behind Kaden.
The fox meanwhile, felt the wire tighten and start cutting into his fingers, drawing blood.
"You know, this would be much easier if you didn't resist."
The vulpine responded to his attacker by stomping on her foot, which enabled him to disarm her of the garrote. Turning around, Kaden knocked the stunned vixen down with a single punch.
"Good one Kaden." Miyu said before turning to the female terrorist.
"You're under arrest."
To their surprise, the vixen laughed.
"Oh yeah?"
She struck out with her foot and kicked the mercenaries' legs out from from under them.
"Than catch me if you can."
The mystery woman stood up at her full height. She was dressed in a black midriff baring top, tight black pants, and knee high boots. As the reports said, she had long purple hair. But most strikingly of all, aside from her blood red eyes, she bore an uncanny resemblance to Krystal.
The lookalike knocked Miyu back with a roundhouse kick. This however, left an opening for Kaden to tackle her to the floor.
"Who are you?" he snarled
"Oh come on, don't tell me that you don't see the resemblance?"
The vulpine then received a headbutt and a punch from the vixen.
"But my friends call me, Kursed."
To Kaden's surprise, long claws began to grow out of Kursed's right hand.
"Another Xenosian experiment?"
"Heh heh heh, I think we both know that's not the case."
Indeed, Kaden did sense something else about Kursed, something that could only be described as evil. He didn't have time to think about it though, as the vixen swung her claws at him. The vulpine tried to dodge, but the claws cut his left arm. He went down with a cry of pain.
"A bit of a pity that you won't live to find out, I kind of like you."
Kaden closed his eyes and waited for the death blow, only to hear Miyu scream "You're not taking him today, you bitch!"
The vulpine saw that the wildcat had grabbed Kursed's wrist. The vixen simply frowned and punched Miyu with her free hand.
"Wait your turn, bitch." Kursed growled, and punctuated it with a kick to Miyu's stomach.
Kaden used the chance to recover, draw his sidearm, and place it against Kursed's temple.
"Give it up Kursed, unless you want us to bring you in dead."
The vixen simply flashed a sadistic grin.
"You still don't get it."
She then disappeared in an orange flash of light. Kaden sensed her behind him and dove to the side as Kursed fired a silenced pistol at him. The vulpine aimed at her, only for Kursed to snap her fingers and cause a wall of flames to appear between them.
"I'd love to stay and chat, but I've gotta run."
Kaden and Miyu looked about and saw that the flames were spreading everywhere. Both of them went low to avoid the smoke. The lynx took a look at her PDA.
"Should be a fire escape outside that window."
Kaden saw that flames were blocking their way. Reaching out with his hands, the vulpine called upon his ice powers. A pale blue aura emitted from them and extinguished the flames.
"Perfect." Miyu said before she shot the window out with her blaster.
The two mercenaries hopped out onto the fire escape and began their descent. Disaster nearly struck when a stair broke out from under Kaden. The vulpine just barely managed to grab hold of the next step. Miyu quickly turned around and grabbed one of his hands, helping him climb back up.
"Thanks."
"No problem."
The wildcat and the vulpine ran all the way to the bottom and stopped to catch their breaths.
"Too close for comfort."said Miyu.
Kaden was about to reply when he heard a metallic screech that set all his warning senses off.
"LOOK OUT!"The vulpine quickly spun around and raised his hands, using telekinesis to stop the collapsing fire escape from falling any further and crushing them."
"Holy shit!" exclaimed the feline.
Kaden looked back at her.
"Miyu, get yourself out of the way. I don't know how long I can hold it."
The lynx did just that and Kaden stared back up at what would be certain death if he didn't take action soon.
"Here goes nothing."
The fox swung his arms to the right to build up momentum and then swung them to the left. He then gave the fire escape a telekinetic shove, sending it away from him. It hit the ground with a loud thud, causing the ground to shake a little.
Relieved, Kaden sank to one knee and began breathing heavily. The downside to Cerinian telepathy is that it taxes one's energy reserves. Overuse can result in exhaustion or even unconsciousness.
The vulpine was a little surprised to feel a hand on his shoulder.
"You okay?" asked Miyu.
"Yeah, just overexerted myself a little."
"Well that's not the understatement of the century."
The lynx helped him stand and the two mercenaries began walking back to their ships. Try as he might, Kaden could not stop thinking about that strange woman.