"The Aaron Beuford is a selfless caretaker of the most insufferable kind," Ben told me as we both sat by the lit hearth, sitting across from each other on the makeshift furniture.
"His insistence on finding a way to free me from my shackles is noble, but he faces a hopeless task. The key to my bonds has long been lost. It pains me to watch him toil and plan on his fruitless efforts to remove this cursed fetter as much as it annoys me."
"Where do suppose it would be?" I asked, looking at the restrictive device he had around his upper body with pity. I had since realised that Ben had a third smaller arm on his abdomen, which was also sealed up tight in his restraints.
"The transport I was imprisoned in was patrolled by armed guards," Ben explained. "The Aaron Beuford went to ludicrous lengths to free me; killing a few of them in his struggle. They nonetheless proved too numerous and he had to flee with me; forced to leave my yoke's key behind to evade the ceaseless barrage. I have remained in this shackled condition since then; bound to this secluded refuge and unable to properly care for myself. The Aaron Beuford promises that he will find a way to release me, but I do not share his hope."
I studied the bulky device around his neck that restrained all three of his arms. I began to wonder if there was something I could do about this. I knew something that could have worked, but much like the key itself, it too was sadly lost.
"Would you mind if I had a look?" I asked. Ben rumbled a doubtful groan.
"I see little reason why you would be able to do what the Aaron Beuford cannot—at least in your current state. But if you insist…"
I nodded and got up to approach him. Ben was still and let me examine his restraints. I saw seam lines that ran from end to end, so I at least knew where to pry, but I couldn't know if tearing the thing off would hurt him or not. Something much more delicate and precise was needed for this problem, and it too was lost much like the key.
"If only I hadn't lost my staff again…" I muttered under my breath as I pulled myself away from Ben, who had heard me well enough to ask me what I meant.
"You lost it when you had been captured," he stated as if he already knew.
"Yes," I admitted, returning to my seat. "I could figure out a way to shatter that device easily with a bit of ice in the right spots."
Ben uttered a low, thoughtful growl. "You are well in tune with the songs that weave our reality. Your vortal hand is profound for one so young."
I didn't know what he meant, but I could feel that it was significant. I had just met Ben and knew virtually nothing about him, but he somehow seemed to relate to me far more than any other I had known in the past. As a result, it almost felt safe for me to let my guard down a little around him, for keeping confidences felt like something he was prodigious at.
"What does that mean…?" I asked him, pulling my banded tail over my lap.
While Ben's face was a little long in shape, I could see a possible smirk etch up the side of his face. "All will be revealed in coming times, young one," he said. "You will do well to put your mind at ease for tonight. Fate has permitted your presence in this dishevelled haven. Nothing can afford to be taken for granted in this world, as you will soon recognize."
His large red centre eye, along with his three smaller orbiting eyes, looked on in the direction of the kitchen, where Aaron had been starting to prepare food for all of us. "All the same. We should both humble ourselves by waiting for our gracious host's return. Should anything of significance be discussed, it is only appropriate that he be present for it."
Around forty minutes later, Aaron announced that supper was finally ready.
Moments after, he wheeled out a steaming pot and three bowls with silverware on a squeaking wooden cart over to the hearth, parking it in the middle of the ring of furniture. It was already sufficiently dark outside, so the fire was the primary source of light in the house, naturally inclining us to keep closure together in this cosy location. Aaron served me first; he poured a ladle full of soupy contents into one of the bowls and brought it over to me.
"Here you are, Krystal," he said, gingerly handing me the hot bowl with a thick cloth underneath it. "I hope you enjoy my famous headcrab jambalaya. Just like how mama used to make it. I always make it for new residents in the house."
I took a good whiff of the contents, and it smelled delightful. It was reddish brown and stew-like, filled with spicy broth, rice-like grains, spices, and chunks of ambiguous meat. Ingesting alien food was always risky, but I practically smelled the promise of this being a safe thing to consume. "Thank you kindly, Aaron," I said. I was already feeling hungry enough to start tasting, but the name of this dish twitched my ear. "What is…headcrab?" I asked as Aaron was pouring up another bowl from the pot.
"Oh, they're nasty little buggers," Aaron said, putting the lid back over the pot before sitting down close to Ben. "They can latch onto your head and turn you into a zombified wreck, hence the name and all." He made a little demonstration of what he illustrated by raising his arms and making a bunch of moaning sounds. I guess that was supposed to illustrate what one of these 'zombies' was supposed to be like, but I wasn't so humoured by the demonstration.
Aaron nervously tugged at his beard for a second before quickly moving on. "Anyway," he said, "headcrabs are plentiful if you know where to look, and I gotta use what we got—which isn't much."
"This is much more than I would ever ask for," I said gratefully. "I don't know how I could repay you for all that you have done for me today."
"How about you eat? That'll be my payment," Aaron suggested.
Aaron's jambalaya was quite flavourful and settled nicely in my stomach. A bounty given the mentioned scarcity of resources. The chunks of this mysterious headcrab meat on the other hand were an interesting case. It was a little rubbery and kind of tough to chew, even with my sharp teeth. It kind of reminded me of those fried 'Aquas grub' balls I ate at a vendor once on Corneria, which I wasn't the biggest fan of. Still, the rich spices and other ingredients helped to make the meat ingestible, and that was more than I had the right to ask for.
"Crunchy like cartilage, isn't it?" Aaron asked me, making me look up from my bowl. I saw him sitting close to Ben; he was feeding him a large spoonful of the stew, though Aaron maintained a quizzical gaze on me as he awaited an answer.
"Oh," I swallowed. "All that you've prepared is perfect. I have no complaint, only thanks."
Aaron shrugged, shovelling another spoonful for Ben. "You don't need to worry about offending. I know headcrab isn't that great, but quality meats are hard to come by here."
"I understand," I nodded. Aaron continued to feed Ben a few more spoonfuls before he felt the need to break the sedentary silence.
"So, Ben, how's this batch? Am I getting better at this or what?" he asked.
"Your culinary skills are improving, Beuford," Ben replied. "I lament that I am continuously unable to provide our table with my shared senses of conjuring esculent delicacies, all in no small part to my infernal restraints."
"Okay. I'll take that," Aaron smiled, giving his resident patient another spoonful. Although Ben expressed gratitude for being looked out for, I could see it in his red eyes that he despised being in this state with his arms locked up like this, and even seemed humiliated to an extent.
I put my spoon inside my mostly empty bowl and gently set it on the floor. "How far in are you in finding a way to get that thing off of him, Aaron?" I asked, crossing my tail over my lap. Aaron spared me another glance, and his old face sank with disappointment.
"Not even close, I'm afraid," he said regretfully, also setting his bowl down after giving Ben one last hearty spoonful of headcrab jambalaya. He then gave his vortigaunt friend another look. "I've assumed you've already told our new friend about the whole lost key situation?"
"Hmm," Ben grunted. Aaron then looked at me again and laced his fingers together.
"Well, lassie," he began, "before I can tell you any more of that, I believe you've been walking blind here for long enough already. You need to know about them first, and why they are making it near impossible to keep going on these days."
Aaron told me about the blight that had been bringing misery to this planet for decades. Planet Earth was currently under occupation of the "Universal Union", though Aaron said that all on Earth simply called them the Combine. They were a malevolent force, ruling over the planet and its populous with an iron fist. The combine had conquered the whole planet in only a short seven hours and had instilled their dominion over all on this planet for nearly twenty years, crippling his species to the point of no hope of liberation.
I initially didn't know how to take this in. These alien invaders conquered the whole planet in only seven hours? I had never heard of a planetary siege so brief and yet so absolute. Either Earth and its forces were small and primitive, or they were neither, and the combine truly was that much more advanced and brutal. How could I dare to hope that the latter possibility was true?
Aaron's thoughts were not contradictory so he meant all that he voiced. I wished he was lying because most of the information he was already telling me was disturbing to me. "They are not of this dimension?" I asked, finding the idea unnerving.
"'Fraid not, lassie," Aaron shook his head. "We're not their first either; slipping through dimensions and sucking their worlds dry is what they do best at. We're just meat in the grinder."
"The Combine is the eternal blight that corrodes the prosperity of precious life," Ben spoke up, contentment rumbling in his already guttural voice. "The world in which all vortikind hail from had also fallen prey to this plague; forcing our weary exile across time and space. Much of our kin have found their way on this world, dually as refugees and as cattle for the ones who choke and bind us."
Ben began to lean forward, squinting his eyes intently at me. "Now you are here among us, forced to dwell beneath the oppressive gaze of the leech whose hunger can never be satisfied. You, Krystal, have traversed the world between the worlds, crossed over to this plane, and now are forced to witness ouuuuuur extinctionnnn…"
What he said frightened me on an existential level. Ben sensed that he stated this more as a warning, but I also sensed that he possessed a kind of knowledge that is not provided to most individuals—for better or for worse. How was one meant to receive a message like that?
Aaron also didn't take to this well, as his thoughts told me that he had never heard Ben speak like this before. "Ben, I would prefer you not scare our new friend. She's got enough to take in already," he firmly said, though Ben ignored him and began to recline backwards, still looking at me, though his face softened to a more studious one like he too was reading my thoughts. I don't know how, but something clicked when I internally reviewed what he said, and it surprised me.
"The world between the worlds…?" I muttered, putting my finger up to my chin as I thought it over. That strange realm I saw before I appeared on this planet, could that have been what Ben was talking about? Amongst all that seemed to resonate between me and the handicapped vortigaunt, one unveiled detail appeared to show itself before my very eyes. "Your world… It's not in this dimension, is it?"
Ben's face turned melancholy as he nodded. "It is dismal reality my kind is forced to contend with," Ben said. "Now it is one that you must face, young one, for you have also been removed from your universe as well."
I believe this answered more questions I didn't know I had, and I felt like I wasn't ready to receive those very answers yet. This planet was not only far away from Lylat, but in a separate universe entirely. I could not have been conceivably more far away from my friends at this point. With all of this in mind, the biggest and most important question manifested itself and would take precedence over all others while I was here: how was I going to get back home?
One thing that was for certain now, I did not possess the knowledge needed to properly answer that question. I had no choice but to build upon that knowledge by learning to survive in this world. And being that my biggest problem was still leagues away from actually being solvable, the best course of action would be to tackle the ones that I could conceivably remedy, and that would involve dismantling the device inhibiting my new, insightful friend.
'Well…that weirdly makes a little more sense…' I heard Aaron think clearly with my telepathy. I chose to ignore what he could have meant by that and forced myself not to dwell on my circumstances, electing to be more helpful to my hosts and contribute to the ongoing efforts to solve their problems. I began to pull away the bangs that were covering my eyes and took a long, thoughtful breath as I reconfigured my priorities.
"All right, so I'm here now. There isn't much I can do about that," I said, straightening my posture. "In the meantime, I want to find a way to help get that thing off of you, Ben. I'm certain there is some kind of alternative in breaking it."
"There is, actually," Aaron added. "Well…theoretically, I mean…"
"What is it?" I asked.
Aaron shifted himself as he began to explain, which was great since I wanted to take my mind off of the existential terror that I was at risk of drowning in. "You see, the Combine have an endless arsenal of gizmos for countless utilities. There's one in particular that I know has to work on Ben's overengineered collar. See this tiny little glow in this tiny little hole here?"
Aaron shuffled over a little and turned Ben's stiff body to better show what he was directing my attention to—at the expense of Ben's personal space. I was, in fact, able to see a tiny light inside one of the small seams behind Ben's neck. "That right there is a tiny reactor. It powers the locks on Ben's restrictor. As long as that thing's powering on, absolutely nothing can unlock it—except for the blasted key that's only wired to this model specifically. You know, the one we can never hope to find."
"I see," I noted, pulling my feet up from the floor and crossing my legs. "If the reactor's off, the restraints come off. What's feeding the reactor?"
"As far as I know, it's of the self-sustaining kind," Aaron said, moving back over to his space. "Combine tech is literally out of this world—in addition to many, many, many other worlds. I reckon the sun would explode by the time the reactor on this thing runs out, so we've got no choice but to find a tool designed to short out power, and I know exactly where to look."
Aaron then began to explain the plan he had been formulating for a little while. There was some kind of depot miles away from this haven that served as a major checkpoint for many of the combine's supply and military networks. Combine trains routinely came and went through that very depot, and the tracks just down the road also met up with the depot. Aaron's plan, so far, was to eventually build up the supplies and courage to hitch a ride on one of those trains and infiltrate the depot for that elusive power sapper.
"What kind of resistance should we expect there?" I asked.
"A lot," Aaron stated grimly. "I can't say for sure, but it's a sizable hub on this end of the continent, so it is positively certain that security will be tight."
"That is a given," I agreed. After summarizing everything in my head, I put my hands on my knees and tapped my fingers on them a few times. "I want to help you see this plan of yours through, Aaron. I'll be willing to help any way I can."
Aaron's eyes widened with surprise. "Now hang on there, lassie, you just got here. I'm not gonna risk putting you at the front lines just so you can be turned to Swiss cheese," he warned. "Besides, I needed some more supplies before I could hope to break in and break out of the depot, and we're nearly out right now as it is. I was going to do some shopping in town tomorrow anyway; how about you tag along and I show you around? You, know, so you can feel a little less lost tomorrow than you were today?" he offered.
He was certainly right in that I needed to be more acquainted with this new world I was in, and I knew that storming the stronghold was not a wise strategy without ample preparedness. After all, I had lost my staff again. I needed to adapt to the circumstances that I had been left with. So, what has truly changed for me?
Looking past that dreary reality, I thought for a moment about Aaron's offer and nodded complacently. "All right. I suppose some orientation will be beneficial for me," I conceded. "When will we set off in the morning?"
Ben suddenly made a long growl that could have been mistaken for a purr. "I believe you have asked enough questions for one night, Krystal," he said. "All will be revealed in time, as I have said. You must not also forget that we too have a few choice questions of our own, and it will be crucial to our cause for you to provide us with the answers to them."
Aaron glanced at my jacket I had sitting next to me, its bright crimson logo of the Star Fox team on full display. He then smiled eagerly at me before standing up to fix himself his bowl of steamy jambalaya at last. "You know what, I think that's a great idea, Ben," he concurred, sitting back down with his spoon reading. "How's about you tell us a little bit about yourself there, eh lassie? I'd love to know where our new pal of ours comes from."
Sometime after I felt I had said enough about myself, nightfall had fully set in, signalling that all in the house should retire for the night.
Aaron showed me to one of the rooms on the second floor meant to shelter other outlanders. It was an accommodating size with five (mostly) clean matrices placed around the walls of the room. This was one of the few rooms in the whole estate that seemed untouched by that past skirmish, in that all the windows were still intact and the walls were without pockmarks.
"Here we are, lassie," Aaron said, waving his lit lantern around the room. "Make yourself at home. I know this isn't some fancy spaceship and all, but it's the best I was able to scrounge up."
"It's perfect, Aaron," I reassured, looking up at the towering man beside me. "Believe me when I say I've spent months in far worse places. All of this is still first-class by my standards."
"Heh, I suppose that's true," Aaron smiled a little sheepishly before shuffling towards the exit. "Now then, get as much sleep as you can. You had a long day," he said as the light in my room began to flicker away from the withdrawal of his lantern.
"Goodnight, Aaron. And thank you again," I smiled his way, prompting a mutual expression from him.
"Of course," he nodded, before finally leaving me in the dark, save for one lit candle in the room.
My smile faded once he was out of view. I considered which mattress I wanted to sleep on for a moment before I settled on one in the corner next to a window. It reminded me of my room aboard the Great Fox II which was also by a window; I hoped that emulating it the best that I could would make me feel a little better. After mindfully pacing around in the room for a few minutes, I blew out the only light source in the room and endured the resulting darkness before kneeling on my provided bed and pulling the old covers over me.
It's hard to find the peace to sleep when you have so much on your mind. While my mind should have been registering the fact that I was stranded in another universe entirely, with no idea how to get back to my realm, that wasn't what was keeping me up—not entirely. I think my grief that had started when I discovered my drafted termination letter had now evolved into full-on mourning.
I woke up this morning—as far as my internal clock was concerned—aboard the Great Fox II with my team, and now I was here. Alone save for two beacons of hope that were my new friends. Nevertheless, what was taken from me was hard for me to accept. I had returned to my past life of surviving in a life that was stacked against me.
I lost my treasured staff, which was my only connection to the life and family I never had. I lost my cloaker that would have led back to the Cloud Runner, so any hope of repowering her any time soon (or ever) seemed less likely now if not impossible. I was left with nothing. Even if I did find a way back to the Lylat System, what if spacetime drastically affected things? Perhaps I would return to a Lylat that was millions or even billions of years older, and my era was long forgotten. How long would it be until I was forgotten? Did Fox and the others even know I was alive?
I was tempted to cry, but I didn't. I had to embrace this reminder that life was cruel and I had to accept it. It had always been cruel to me, so why should it change its tune? Yet, why did it feel especially harder to take this time?
It took a while, but I managed to say goodbye to my old life and to all my dear friends whom I loved and accepted my new station here in this realm. Pessimistic of me? Perhaps. But I had to do this in the likely event that I would never find a way back home. I needed some semblance of insurance to prevent myself from crumbling to bits on the inside.
"I love you, Fox…" That was the very last and only attempt I made to transmit at least some kind of telepathic message to Fox. If any last words had to be said, I wanted them to be real and how I truly felt. I finally managed to nod off as I waited for some kind of telepathic reply in the hopes he had somehow heard me across the dimensional plane, but silence was all that answered me.