Star Fox 1. Chapter 1

'**Resolutions'**

A Star Fox work of Fanfiction by Stinger – VXR42

Summary:

After the First Lylat War, Fox is under pressure to find two more pilots for his team – but his only two real choices he wants set off a chain-reaction of anger and resentment amongst his colleagues and friends. As the year 3000 approaches, does Fox care more about his reputation, or his inner happiness? A FyFxMy triangle story.

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The door slammed shut again, leaving Fox McCloud alone in the dimly-lit room, just as he had been for the last few hours, his crew members having vacated the interview room nearly five hours prior. Falco Lombardi's absence was due to his claims of boredom; Peppy Hare had apparently lost the will to live, and Slippy Toad was simply tired. All of these reasons came down to the same problem though, and it was one that the young vulpine was attempting to tackle head-on.

Ever since their decisive victory over the Venomian forces and their mad leader, the simian Dr Andross, the Star Fox had lived on as the close-knit team of four male pilots that nearly every child on Corneria knew about, and looked up to in some way; whether it be Falco's cockiness and way he drew the women's eyes, Peppy's wisdom, Slippy's comic appeal and mechanical genius or Fox's quiet demeanour that masked the true person within him – he was on posters in teenage girls' and young boys' rooms alike as a true hero of the Lylat system.

Good as life had been, however, having only four members on the team was a little boring at times, and when this had slipped Falco's beak at a press conference a few months back, it was almost immediately that every parent in the Corneria Flight academy was sending letters to them begging for a place on the team for their child to enter. Soon the list of mail increased to letters from fans desperately asking if they could come to the ship to spend some time with their heroes, and their old teachers at the school recommending new recruits.

Just as the mail list was starting to become physically overwhelming; a message had come from their old employer, General Pepper, suggesting they look at a list of those who had scored above average in the flight simulators and were flying with the Cornerian navy, and who didn't mind joining Star Fox – something of a new years' special gift for the academy where Peppy, Slippy and I all went at some point to learn to fly and fight.

As much as Fox wanted to see his old friend Bill Grey on the team, the hound was perfectly happy as the leader of his own squadron, but put up a list of his personal suggestions, most of whom were on Pepper's list as well. Sticking with his instincts, Fox had taken the General's list, crossed off the names Bill hadn't mentioned, and dragged his team down for a bunch of interviews.

"_I'm beginning to see why they left…"_ he thought resignedly, referring to his team as he crossed out the final name on the joint list he'd drawn up. He'd been seeing the interviewees in pairs, and as of yet still had to be impressed by one of them. None of them were the sort of person he'd really let within a mile radius of his ship, or within five miles of himself again. Four pairs had actually walked into the room evidently filled up to the eyeballs on something undoubtedly illegal, and had just been shown right back out again by the vulpine and the avian; and another pair just wanted his autograph.

Fox began to crumple the three lists – His, Pepper's and Bill's - into a ball, crushing them between his silver gloves with a hint of anger, attempting to compress the paper into nothing. Just as he had a perfect sphere of rejected candidates though, he noticed a scrawl on the back of Bill's sheet. Unfolding the paper, he quickly skimmed over the short note, his emerald green eyes zipping across the sheet.

"_Hey, Fox? If you can't make your mind up, then try these two – don't be fooled by first impressions though. Bill."_

Fox noticed the two names scribbled in the corner of the page, being one of the select few who could read Bill's handwriting, some of the others being Beltino Toad, and Mrs Grey herself. The two names seemed just to be first initials, along with a last name, or maybe a gender and race description; he couldn't tell.

M. Lynx F. Spaniel

Glancing over his friend's otherwise incomprehensible handwriting, Fox shrugged, and decided to give these two pilots a go. Maybe, if he was lucky, they might be suitable for the team…

He flicked open his comm.-link and opened a line to the academy switchboard, Vera. Vera was well past her fitness prime, but the hedgehog's abilities with people were legendary. Hitting one of the quick-contact buttons, a hovering holographic image of the woman flickered to life on the screen, and Vera turned a hazel eye to look at him.

"I thought that was the last pair of candidates you were interviewing," she cut in, shuffling a sheaf of pages whilst still retaining eye contact, a note of concern in her voice. Fox nodded, but glanced down at the paper again.

"Yeah…" he began tentatively. "But I may have another pair," he explained, causing the hedgehog to swing round in her specially modified chair and give him her undivided attention. At her raised eyebrow, he read out from the page. "Do you have an 'M. Lynx', and an 'F. Spaniel' in your database?" he asked. At this, Vera's eyes lit up and sparkled mischievously.

"Miyu and Fay? Of course, I'll have them right in," she replied instantly, turning away, but not lifting her usual phone, but bringing out her mobile phone, and keying in a message rapidly, causing Fox to tilt his arm-comm. in an attempt to see past her. His prying attempts came to naught though, and within a few minutes of the most furious keying he had ever seen, Vera snapped her phone shut, and turned to face him with a sly grin on her face. Then, without another word, she terminated the connection.

Fox stared for a moment where the image had been before, and then shrugged, trying to push off the odd feeling that he may be in for a surprise he wasn't altogether prepared for. He resumed his crumpling of his, Pepper's and Bill's list, and lobbing them into the waste paper bin across the room. Managing to get a direct throw into the bin third time with Bill's list, he responded by punching the air, mouthing the word 'Yes!' silently, and it was at that point the door opened. Fox quickly turned round to see a figure at the door, and nearly fell off his chair in shock.

"Didn't anyone tell you we were coming?" asked the girl in the doorframe, eyes narrowed teasingly. Fox was suddenly aware his mouth was open as he stared at the lynx, leaning against the doorjamb. He quickly closed it, and re-arranged himself on his seat, clearing his throat and nodding.

"Yeah, sorry. Come on in," he managed, his mouth slightly dry. The feline smiled, winked, and then sauntered across the room, dropping her body into one of the chairs, placing her boots on the desk just as Falco had done before he had left. The girl's fur was a whole range of contrasts – orangey brown was the most prominent, but there was a splash of white under her muzzle and scorched brown stripes crossed her arms and face, one shaped like an arrow meeting just between her eyes.

Before the startled vulpine could say anything, a canine with bright white fur entered the room, looking a little flustered. She didn't have much of the tomboyish appearance as the lynx, for there was a smattering of cobalt eye shadow above her eyebrows, the same colour as her bright, bold sky-blue eyes. Her earrings weren't the same brash metal hoops as the ones that adorned her friend's tufted ears, but were pinned moons and stars made of shining metals, unclear to Fox's eye whether they were genuine gold and silver or not.

"Sorry," she panted, clambering into a chair beside the lynx. "I was in the shower when you called for us." Fox's stomach gave an uneasy lurch at this information, and he tried to keep his mind from forming images of what that might have looked like. He had been exposed to precious little female attention during his life, and to find himself alone in a room, preparing to interview these two for a place on his ship, finding they were his last chances, had come as a shock.

Fox wondered for a moment whether this was yet another one of Bill's many tricks he'd played on him concerning this unfortunate inability to relate very much to women – Bill himself was always the compromise between Fox's shyness, and Falco's darn brashness, and often tried his best to get the two of them in situations with girls they couldn't get out of. Pepper didn't have them on his list, so they hadn't managed to pass their flying tests, or at least without flying colours.

"_On the other hand…" _Fox remembered the 'dear' General's attitude to females in his navy, and in fact all women in general. It was very likely that Pepper had 'accidentally' 'forgotten' to add their names in, and it was only by trusting his friend that Fox had met these two. The vulpine suddenly realised that Miyu was smirking slightly, and Fay was going a little pink around the muzzle.

Noticing that he may have been staring a little, he swallowed, and folded his arms on the desk in a professional, but casual way as well.

"So… so you must be Miyu?" he asked, looking at the lynx, and getting a short nod in response. Turning to the canine, he simply asked, "Fay?" and got a nod in reply, along with a little blush. Turning red himself, he looked down a little and cleared his throat. "So, let's get on with the interview shall we?"

"That's what we're here for, isn't it?" asked Miyu, a brown stripe of an eyebrow rising as she looked at Fox intently through – and this gave him an extra surprise when he noticed it – a bright purple eye. Fox swallowed slightly under the lynx's gaze, feeling a little bit oppressed by it.

"Yeah, but I was just…" he stammered slightly, feeling himself go even redder. Oh, how he was going to kill Bill if these two didn't make the team, and he had spent the interview with Miyu making him look like a complete tool. "Trying to get my words in order, that's all." Bravo Fox, what an excuse; now even Fay was giggling. Fox cleared his throat, and did his best to look serious.

"Do you two have your flight pass grades on you?" he asked, trying to launch into something. The smirk was wiped off the lynx's face as she felt around in her breast pocket, and didn't pull out anything, her violet eyes going into a panic.

"Damn, I left it…" she began, but her friend, the spaniel, cut her off.

"I know Miyu always does that, that's why I have both of ours," she explained, passing the two sheaves of paper across to him over the desk. Fay gave Fox a devilish little smile, glancing at Miyu – who had gone red this time – from the side of her eyes. He took the paper, returning Fay's smile; it had done a good deal to lift a weight off Fox's chest, but he remembered that fact about Miyu being forgetful, and wondered if it amounted to plain laziness at times.

Fox flipped the two files round to the overall summaries, giving the overall marks for each of the main subjects pilots were expected to take: languages, sciences, physical education, literature and of course, flying technique. Fox ran his eyes over both pages in depth, not skimming as he had with some of the later applicants, occasionally looking up towards one of the girls when he read something particularly positive or negative about either of them. He found himself nodding in appreciation of their flying marks; granted a fair portion of other applicants had better marks, but often they dropped in other fields quite dramatically. The girls both had average marks all round; though when he mentioned this to them they both shuffled uncomfortably.

"We help each other with the subjects we're not very good at," explained Miyu, Fay having seemed to have sealed her muzzle shut and become very interested in one of her earrings. "I help Fay with Languages and Mathematics; she helps me with Sciences and Literature," she finished, now looking extremely guilty and rubbing the back of her head through her long black hair. Fox looked back down at the notes the teachers had made on them, did a few basic sums in his head, and arrived at the conclusion that she was most likely telling the truth. The vulpine considered it for a moment, but didn't say anything.

"Fay is a very likable, clever and energetic girl who is determined to complete tasks she's been set, and I see a good future for her," Fox read out approvingly, unable to stop himself. He looked up to find Miyu smiling warmly at her friend, who in turn had gone a deep shade of pink. "Miyu…" Fox then began to read from the lynx's paper, smiling wickedly at the lynx, and she paled noticeably, the red fading slightly from Fay's muzzle. "Is an adaptable, capable and effective pilot, who I'm sure will go on to great things," Fox read out, nodding in time to his words. Fay and Miyu grinned at each other, resisting the urge to give each other a high-five even as Fox made a mental note that he didn't care that they were girls rather than guys, he wanted these two on his team, and that was just by their records. Whole new reasons began to open up once you actually looked at them…

Fox swallowed, keeping his imagination in check and mentally reprimanding himself. Nuh-uh, he was not going to hire two girls if one of the reasons he would put down on their CVs was so he could ogle them; he was going to be a perfect gentleman with Fay and Miyu. Or at least as much as a mercenary could be a gentleman…

Suddenly, Fox saw the note made by General Pepper at the base of the reports, and his eyes widened to the size of saucers. There, in the General's favourite maroon ink was a dashed off sentence, exactly the same in both girls' sheets.

"_This girl will never amount to anything."_

"Did he even look at the rest of the sheets?" exploded Fox angrily, throwing the two sheets to the table in frustration. "Bloody hell… and they let him command an entire army…" He looked up in horror as he realised he's been shouting out loud, and both canine and feline were staring at him in an odd mix of apprehension and was that… approval? "Sorry…" he whispered, calming down and resting his head in his arms. "I just get mad when I see that sort of stuff," he mumbled into his crossed arms. He half expected to hear the grind of chair legs on the stone floor, and the slam of the interview room door; but it never came. There was moment of silence, until Fay broke it.

"We're used to it," she whispered, reaching out a hand and lifting Fox's muzzle out of his arms. "Please don't worry yourself with it." Fox couldn't help but shudder slightly under the canine's touch, but it brought a smile to his face just through the contact. The words, however, sank in brutally.

"It's a regular occurrence for you?" he asked, drawing himself out of Fay's hand and looking at them both now, shock in his eyes. He'd heard that women had rough times in the flight schools, but he had no idea it went this deep. Fox instinctively felt his hands curl up into tight balls as both girls looked at each other and nodded slowly. This was something he had to sort out; something he didn't like – and he was determined to sort it out.

"Well, I promise I'll get back to you," he insisted, shuffling his papers and smiling at the pair of them. "Honest," he added, noticing Miyu's eyebrow rising again; but he seemed to have missed the intended humour in it; the lynx was smiling too.

"Thanks, foxy-boy," she said, rising to her feet having removed her boots from the table. Fay nodded as well, returning Fox's smile the vulpine sent in her general direction. Both girls got to their feet, as did Fox, and he shook hands with the pair of them, the first time he had this day. However, the girls did seem a little surprised when he offered a hand, and Fox noticed they leant back a bit, as if they had been bending forward previously. Fay and Miyu still managed to put on a good face as they shook hands, and then they turned to leave. Fay winked at Fox as she left the room, as did Miyu, but she nonchalantly flicked her short tail just before she left, which Fox found his eyes following intently. As soon as the door shut, and he was alone again, he turned to Bill's sheet, which he had hidden underneath Fay and Miyu's reports, and a list of questions he had used on some of the past candidates.

Slowly, Fox raised his pen, his favourite one that he'd kept since his induction into the rank of his father – a solid aluminium that gleamed its silver light all around as he lifted it out of his pocket and into the light. The now worn grip of green rubbery plastic felt comforting to the mercenary as he gave the tip a short lick to loosen off the ink. He reached out with his right hand, holding the paper in his hand, and slowly and carefully, drew two clean loops in emerald-green ink around Fay and Miyu's names.


	2. Chapter 2

A week later, Fox found himself, for the second time in his life, inside the girls' corridor in the Corneria Flight Academy. He now was glad he'd been here before, to avoid excess embarrassment; though he wasn't sure it made much difference. On the day he'd had to sneak up and try to find out what Katt Monroe wore at night by going though her drawers (a brilliant idea of Lombardi's), he hadn't been a famous pilot, mercenary and fighter, and the focus of not a few teenage girls' late-night fantasies Now, however, the times seemed to have moved on.

"Is that really him?" Fox felt a deep flush at the back of his neck as he felt himself become the attention of a pair of girls, a mountain lion and a zebra.

"Oh, my goodness! What's he doing here?" asked the puma, evidently shocked by the prospect that Fox could be in the corridor with them, only a couple of metres out of armreach.

"I have got to talk to him!" declared the equine, and Fox heard the unmistakable 'clop' of booted hooves coming towards him. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead as he stayed where he was, still waiting for the two girls inside to emerge, so he could help them with their moving, as he promised he would.

"Hey… hey, Fox McCloud, isn't it?" Fox forced himself to turn and look at the zebra, who was staring at him with distinctively star-struck eyes. He saw her open her mouth, but what came out afterwards could have been white noise on a comm.-link for all he could tell. She was speaking so quickly, and so unintelligibly he found himself taking a step back such was the fear of it. All he could tell was the word 'like' was included far, far too many times that should normally be in conversation.

"Don't you think?" she ended, smiling broadly, and tracing the ground with the toe of one of her boots. Fox stared at her in horror, as if she had been made of mucus. He opened his muzzle, trying to think of what could possibly be the right answer to the question; though he was eventually saved as the door to his right opened now, that he had been standing in front of for a while now, and a brown/orange and black furred head with tufted ears popped around the opening.

"Oh, Fox! You're here!" cried Miyu happily, very obviously winking at him. She turned and smiled at the striped horse, waving around the door gap. "Hi Phillipa!" she said brightly. "Fox was going to come in here to help us out a little bit!" she explained lightly. The equine stared in horror, first at the lynx, then the fox, and then back again to Miyu. Her mouth flapped dumbly for a few seconds, and then she turned on her heel, marching away from the pair of them.

"Thanks," mouthed Fox as Miyu grinned back at him, and he threw a glance at the departing girls' backs. Ms Lynx opened the door wider, and he was given a look at her plain red shirt and jeans she'd thrown on, obviously not with much care. He breathed a silent sigh of relief as the girl turned to saunter into the room – he'd thought for a moment that she might not be wearing anything, hence the fact she only stuck her head and arm round the door.

"Hope you don't mind, but I couldn't resist giving that lot a shock," the lynx explained, flopping down onto the faded sofa, once a brilliant crimson and now a dull pink. "After all those accusations of being loners, or freaks, I just knew I had to give them a shock by inviting you in here…" she broke off as she noticed the slightly hurt expression on Fox's face. "Oh, damn…" she muttered, as Fox avoided eye contact with her, instead looking around the room.

"How many boxes am I taking out for you two?" he asked, changing the subject abruptly. He'd never actually felt the feeling of being used like that, and it felt pretty lousy, for want of a better word.

"I've got two, and Fay has three," she explained. "You don't mind taking two of Fay's boxes, do you?" she asked. "I'll manage my own, but Fay's not the strongest of girls." Fox nodded, looking at the five 'boxes' (not far at all form being called crates) around the apartment with nothing short of abject terror. He'd heard the tales of girls always taking loads more stuff with them wherever they went, but never thought it actually amounted to this much. When he'd left the college, he needed just two small cardboard boxes to fill with his stuff.

"Are they light?" The lynx bobbed her head from side to side for a moment, making 'hmmm' noises deep in her throat, probably deep in thought, though odd noises caused by females wasn't one of Fox's speciality subjects.

"One of each of ours is just clothes, so that'll be pretty easy on the arms," she said, looking over two of the boxes. "My other one is just a few trinkets, so that won't be too heavy. Fay's bringing a lot of her furniture, though," she said off-handedly, and Fox suddenly found a strong need to sit down.

"Where is Fay, by the way?" asked Fox, wincing slightly at the ironic rhyming, and wondered what on earth had caused her parents to cause that sort of name for their daughter. Miyu spun a finger round, and left it pointing at the door on the left side of the room.

"Bathroom," she explained shortly. "You're welcome to use it if you need to – though Fay's taken the need for cleaning our room to a slightly higher level than I would have thought necessary." Fox blinked a couple of times at the lynx's drop in tone, almost as if she thought that cleaning was a waste of time. Fox wasn't a neat freak himself, but he did appreciate neatness and tidiness in his vicinity. Miyu, though, in her scuffed trainers, torn jeans and faded and shrunken shirt, looked like she cared very little about neatness. Her black headfur was unkempt, and it fell about her shoulders in no particular order. Her earring was dull and tarnished, which showed it hadn't been washed for some time.

As he opened his mouth to say something about said piercing, the bathroom door opened, and Fox was struck by the stark difference between the two friends. Fay was wearing a pair of yellow rubber gloves, her hair and ears were tied back behind her head and the white shirt she'd put on showed next to no signs of dirt or discolouration on it. As the dog turned round to close the bathroom door, Fox noticed all her earrings were shiny and polished, and he nodded appreciatively.

"Oh, hi Fox!" Fay exclaimed as she turned round, and noticed him for the first time. Fox extended a hand, going slightly flushed, and the canine pulled her glove off and took it gladly. "Sorry, it's covered in bleach," she explained, flapping the glove to emphasise it. Miyu rolled her eyes, as if to say 'I told you so' to Fox, but Fay caught it as well.

"So you were willing to pay the fine for 'not leaving the room in the state we found it'?" Fay demanded, stripping off her other glove and placing her hands on her hips. Miyu held up her hands, but Fox wasn't entirely sure whether it was in despair or defeat.

"It only makes it harder for the next two to come in!" she protested, still lying on the sofa lazily, one hand draped onto the floor. Fox hoped that she'd forgotten the event outside – he hoped to do so if he was going to speak with Miyu again on more friendly terms. Fay shook her head, and undid the rubber band holding her long, fluffy ears and blue hair back.

"I'm going to go get dressed properly, alright?" she asked, not really expecting an answer it seemed. She was already walking across to what Fox took to be her room, and couldn't help noticing that she had started removing her shirt before the door actually fully closed.

"I'm only being mean to her, so you know," said Miyu off-handedly. "She's no neat freak; she can be as scruffy as I am if she wants. She just likes to always leave a good impression on others," she explained, winking at Fox, who had turned away from the bedroom door, desperately trying to hide his odd mix of embarrassment and interest. "Has she left a good impression on you?"

"You both did," replied Fox earnestly, thinking on his feet. Miyu arched an eyebrow at him and nodded appreciatively.

"Clever boy. We catch a lot of guys out as idiots or perverts that way," the lynx explained as she buried herself deeper into the worn sofa. Fox took a seat at the kitchen counter without asking, and thought for a moment. These two girls seemed like a proper team together, but the way they talked about other people in the college made it sound like they were almost outcasts. A theory began to form in his mind, but it was definitely not something he wanted to ask right away. In fact, he had the feeling Miyu would already know the question.

"Before I answer your question," the tufted feline said, confirming Fox's suspicions. "Would the answer affect your idea of us?" she asked, her expression turning to a much more steely and serious one. Fox only had to consider the question for a moment before he answered.

"It's none of my business," replied Fox, remembering the conversation he'd had with another pilot a few years ago. "It's why I didn't ask, it just occurred to me." Miyu studied him long and hard, before her expression softened again, and she grinned.

"You're a good man McCloud. Better than the papers make you out to be," the lynx said, pushing herself back into her relaxed position on the sofa. "Sure you're the hero and everything, but that's the end of it, they say. You're a mercenary." Fox looked thoughtful. He'd never actually thought much about how he'd been portrayed in newspapers or magazines – hence the abject shock when every pair of eyes followed him in this part of the building – but that particular idea definitely struck a chord. Was that how he was seen? His crew too?

"Thanks for that, though," Fox said eventually, nodding thankfully at the lynx. "But could you answer my question now?" he asked, curiosity aroused now to the point that he couldn't disguise it so easily. Miyu pursed her lips, and looked thoughtful.

"I don't remember you asking me any questions at all, Fox…" she murmured thoughtfully, and the vulpine groaned. Miyu was going to be a handful, no matter what he did; so much for not getting another Falco, he thought moodily.

"Hey there!" Fox wheeled round to see that Fay had just come out of her room, and true to her friend's word, was only slightly less scruffy in her mufti than in her flight kit. Her hair was now done up with a long pink headscarf, which replaced the elastic band used earlier in the cleaning process (though no less elegant, it looked like it had been done up in quite a hurry). Her jeans were a muted grey from wear – Fox couldn't help noticing the top button was undone -, and her shirt was actually on back-to-front, if the bright pink words on the yellow background telling Fox and Miyu that they '_weren't good enough to see the other side_' were to be believed.

Miyu gave Fox one of her 'I-told-you-so' expressions, and smiled at her friend innocently.

"I'll go get the stuff from our lockers, then?" the feline asked, and the canine nodded, digging a key out of one of her pockets and tossing it to the tufted cat.

"Thanks, Miyu!" Fay called out as the lynx in question jogged to the door, swung around the handle long enough to nod, wave and mouth 'no problem' to Fay and give a goodbye wink to Fox before the door slammed shut with her on the other side. Fay sighed, gave a short smile at the closed door, and turned to Fox again.

"Can I get you something to drink?" she asked brightly, her smile in place once again. Fox shook his head politely, returning the smile.

"I had a soft drink out in the courtyard, thanks," he explained, actually dying of thirst, but unwilling to give the impression that he wanted stuff off the girls. He got the feeling that it wouldn't give a good impression of him as a pilot. Fay shrugged.

"Well, to be honest all we had to offer you was water out of the tap," she explained, and Fox mentally slapped himself. He was prone to making assumptions and worrying about leeching off other people, and he'd gone and done it again. Fay, however, seemed to be confused as to why it was very tight to move her shoulders, and she looked down to see her dress state.

"Oh, my word…" she muttered, going a deep shade of pink under her white fur. "Do you mind not looking for a second?" she asked Fox, and the vulpine went a little red himself. Trying to be the right gentleman, Fox turned and suddenly found a need to wash his hands at the sink, turning the faucet on high pressure so it would drown out any sounds from behind. However, he couldn't really leave the tap running forever, and when he turned it off, a small voice was calling his name from behind him.

"Fox? It's stuck…" the vulpine looked round to see that Fay had indeed got her shirt tangled up in the odd mix of her blue hair, large and floppy ears and her pink headscarf/ribbon. It had got half-way off her upper body, so it was muffling her muzzle, hence the small voice. It also seemed to be muffling the light cursing that Fay was giving as she stayed still, probably too worried of knocking something over to move around much.

"Coming!" Fox half-sang, his initial embarrassment given way to his concern about what could happen to the half-blinded canine. He crossed the room and grabbed Fay's wrists to stop her falling about – this was an almost automatic response, cultured over many years of Slippy's experiments going wrong and Falco forgetting which way round his aftershave sprayed. "Alright, hold still. I'll get this off you."

"Don't rip it please!" called out the white dog from within the cloth. Fox nodded, taking in a deep breath and wondering how to do this. The logical solution seemed to be to roll it down first, and take it off slower, and as such he then proceeded to do exactly that, gripping the hems and easing them down slowly, until her face came into view again, albeit with a bright red tinge around it.

"There we go," said Fox, nodding at nothing in particular. Fay breathed a few words of thanks, and then looked down at her shirt, still the wrong way round.

"It's right. You don't deserve just to see the back of me," she said smoothly, stroking Fox's cheek with a hand. "You're a real gentleman," she added, winking at him to give the vulpine a glimpse of her crystal-blue eyeliner. Fox folded his arms and laughed a bit – for some reason feeling braver than usual around girls.

"That's the second time I've heard that today," he said, arching an eyebrow. "Do you really mean it?" he added, remembering uncomfortably the way Miyu had treated him, and being struck with the rather unsavoury idea of the two girls were playing tricks on him. Fay did seem a little lighter and less sardonic than the lynx, but they were as thick as thieves. Maybe even closer…

"Yes, I do!" insisted the spaniel, sounding slightly hurt. "We've been treated so badly…" she began to say, but she cut off her words as a loud 'thump' from the wall outside caught both their attention – it sounded very much like someone had thrown someone against it, hard.

"You harlot!" screamed a voice from outside, and then the distinctive noise of a slap across furred skin. Both canids belted towards the door, Fox's hand automatically moving to the blaster on his hip…which he had left at the entrance. Security rules, it was said.

As soon as both Fay and Fox ran out the door, they saw what had been the problem. Miyu was doubled over against the wall, several bags of stuff at her feet, having fallen from her hands. She seemed to be struggling for breath, but her eyes were full of fire as she looked at none other than the zebra he had seen earlier. Her puma friend was no-where to be seen.

"You don't deserve someone like that!" howled the female equine, striking the lynx across the face with her eyes full of tears. As Miyu's head was smashed back against the wall again, she noticed the vulpine and canine seconds before they barrelled into the zebra, knocking her to the floor.

"And you speak?" screamed Fay, seemingly unable to control herself now. "You, who openly tells stories of your exploits with 'the guys down the corridor', or how many posters of guys you have up in your room?" Fox was pinning the zebra's arms behind her back as Fay gave her a slap this time, the dog's face contorted with rage.

"Fay, stop!" he called out over the equine's shoulder. She looked up at him then, and he noticed that though tearless, her eyes were a horrific mix of fear, indignance and anger. He got to his feet, pulling the equine up with him, and turned her to look at him. "Go back to your room," he told her firmly, and through puffy eyes and the most obvious false wobbling smile Fox had ever seen, she nodded and clopped off to her room. McCloud was then left with the two girls he'd hired, both crouching on the floor, and both looking thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

"Fay, go back and change your clothes. Miyu, you go and have a lie down. I'll take all your boxes out, and then we're going to have a little chat about rules when you're on my ship," he eventually said, authorative mode in place. Both spaniel and lynx nodded, and helped each other into the room. Fox took a deep breath, and followed them in. This certainly wasn't going to be easy to deal with.


	3. Chapter 3

Fox was sitting in his favourite chair in his cabin aboard the Great Fox, rubbing his eyes with his thumbs – he'd given up his usual ritual of running a hand through his Mohawk a while ago when he accidentally tugged a knot in it and gave a rather embarrassing yip. Fox hated trying to simply sit and think, and always had to do something with his hands to keep his mind working. A dim whirring was in the room, and it really wasn't helping him think right.

Both Fay and Miyu were standing in the room, Miyu looking thoroughly ticked off now that she had recovered from her assault by the zebra femme. Or at least, she looked that way when she didn't have the cold pack that Slippy had given her upon entry attached to her face. Fay had her hands behind her back, and wasn't making eye contact with him, which made Fox just a little bit angry at himself for what he was doing, but he'd promised to make up his mind about what to do with the two girls about the incident in the corridor to Peppy and Pepper.

The general had come along to talk to him only a few minutes after the incident with the fight, just as Fox was going to go for a cool pack for Miyu's face – he had been forced to explain what had happened, and the old dog seemed to understand that it had been the fault of both girls. The girls' house mistress had tried to stand up for Miyu and Fay, but had been overruled by the General, and he contacted Fox's equivalent of Mrs Hommand (Fay and Miyu's house mistress and mentor) to make sure the mercenary captain's opinion was something that he could sympathise with.

"I'm not going to blame either of you for what happened," he informed both the girls, and noticed that Miyu's eyes rolled a little. He ignored that, and continued talking. "Fay, I just hope I don't see any brawling like that when you're officially under my watch, or you will be sent to the brig no questions asked." The spaniel nodded, albeit a little bit stiffly. Fox sighed at their reactions, and flopped back into his chair in his room. He reached over and hit one of the buttons in the wall – the second he did, a whirring that had previously filled the cabin dissipated and his body relaxed a great deal, as did those of both girls. Fox grinned and motioned to his bunk.

"Right, sit down and I'll give you my real opinion," he told them both, leaning back further as each girl spread herself out on his bed, which was small compared to a king size bed in the same way one of his regular crewmate's beds was small relative to a regular single bed. The whirring had been Peppy recording the conversation, usually used only in interrogations, but the old hare was very wary of the two girls. Fox, though, was pretty sure the hare just didn't trust him with two girls in the room.

"From what you two have told me," he said, nodding at both of them. "I'm under the impression neither of you are really guilty of anything. But you two are going to have to put up with a lot of angry and jealous girls if you ever go out in public. Do you promise me you won't get into any fights unless really necessary?" he asked, looking at both of them with questioning eyes. Canine and feline nodded earnestly, and Fox smiled. "Then I trust you both, and I won't take this matter any further."

"Thanks," came a voice pointed not in his direction, but the occupant's eyes were looking at him at least. "Did you really have to go through the old coot impression though?" asked Miyu huffily as she folded her arms. Fay punched her friend lightly in the arm and made a hushing sound at the lynx, but Fox held up a hand.

"Yes, I did, Miyu. And the reason being that if I hadn't," Fox explained, steepling his fingers. "Peppy would have assumed you convinced me to not punish either of you in slightly more 'uncouth ways'," he added, imitating Peppy's voice in what turned out to be quite a good impression. Good enough, it seemed, to put a smile back on Miyu's face and break Fay down into a fit of giggling.

"Old-timers don't seem to like us very much, do they?" the canine blurted out in the middle of a breathing break from her laughter. Miyu smirked a little, and shook her head.

"Nuh-uh. Can't think what it could be," she said innocently, crossing her legs and sitting up on the bed now. Fox laughed as well, and decided to see how far he could push Fay's respiratory system.

"_Those girls don't look like anything good will come of them,_" Fox spoke in a spookily near-perfect Peppy impression, remembering the hare's words as he placed both of their papers on the table of the Great Fox briefing room and announced that he'd chosen two more members. "_I think you made a bad choice Fox. Who knows what they'll get up to?_" Miyu was grinning harder now, but was focussing more on the white dog than anything else, who was rolling on the bed clutching her sides.

"No… Fox… Please stop…" she gasped, each time the serious nature of the words overrun by another bout of tears and laughter. Miyu got up, still with a smile plastered across her cream-coloured muzzle, and walked over to Fox, offering him her hand to pull himself out of the chair. The russet fox blinked at the gesture a little, and wondered what it was all about. He took Miyu's hand, which he found slightly callused and rough, but had a warm feel to it beneath the very soft fur; an odd combination of tough skin and very fluffy fur.

"She's ticklish too, you know," Miyu then told Fox once he'd got to his feet., and jabbed him just above the ribs as Fay's eyes went wide and she backed against the wall. "Just there," she added, grinning at the spaniel.

"You wouldn't…" whispered Fay, pressing herself against the wall with utter terror in her face. "I can kick you through the wall if you try," she added as an afterthought, in attempt to intimidate him, it seemed. Fox looked over to Miyu with a very 'shall I?' expression in his green eyes, and purple ones winked back at him.

"She loves it really, don't you Fay?" she asked again, and Fay crossed her arms over the bit that Miyu had indicated, shaking her head so emphatically her large ears flapped back and forth. Fox considered this little snippet of information Miyu had given him, and made a mental note of where it could be implemented in future. Then, he stopped himself and went a little red around the ears; this wasn't him! What on earth was Miyu doing to his mind?

"_She'll have me having Falco's sorts of dreams soon,"_ he thought with a little shudder. He shook his head and turned about to face the smiling lynx.

"I'm afraid I'll have to think about that another day," he told the now crestfallen feline. He wasn't sure what Fay had just done behind him, but Miyu had responded to something by making some form of face over his shoulder. He wheeled about to catch Fay with her hands behind her back and an innocent expression on her face. If she'd tried any harder, a faux pair of wings and a halo would have appeared over her head.

"Miyu, you can go and talk to Slippy about weapons options for your Arwing," the vulpine told her, and the striped feline's face lit up at that proposal. "I just need a little talk with Fay in here," he added as Miyu held the door open, presumably for her friend. When she realised her usual accomplice wouldn't be coming, she blinked a few times, and then nodded.

"OK, then. Try not to make too much noise, you two," she added with a wink at the pair of them as she walked out the door with a swish of her tail. Fox's jaw fell open and he was left mouthing soundlessly after her as she went. After a few minutes, he regained his composition; he took a few deep breaths and stopped his tail from twitching a little bit; and went to sit back in his chair. Fay had by now settled down into a sitting position, and faced the russet-gold fox, whose face had taken on a little bit more of a serious tone.

"You looked… pretty angry when you were attacking Phillipa," he told her, though that was a little bit of an understatement. She had looked livid. Fay nodded, and wound a strand of blue head fur around a finger as she spoke.

"Like we told you, she's essentially the college slut," she explained in a voice not quite like her usual one. Both Fay and Miyu had explained how the zebra had given them such a hard time, and it wasn't illogical that they should both have a nasty attitude towards her, but this sort of edgy, steely tone to Fay's voice was rather unusual, and didn't suit her. "I don't like hypocrites and liars," Fay continued, still curling her hair absent-mindedly with a finger.

"That was still pretty vicious. Can I trust you not to do anything like that to anyone on the ship?" Fox asked, his voice laced with a little underlying trouble. He really didn't want to see the pretty dog flare up like that, and certainly not at someone on his crew whom he trusted. Fay looked up from her curling, her face slightly surprised, and was that… hurt he saw?

"I… I'm sorry. I promise I won't," she said through what seemed to be a little lump in her throat. "I didn't mean to affect your judgement of me like that…" she whispered, looking down at her feet. Fox bit his lip and swore in his mind. He hadn't meant it like that. He got up from his chair once again, and sat down next to the white-furred fellow canine, placing his hand over hers in what he hoped was a kind gesture.

"My judgement of you isn't affected," he told her earnestly, slipping his fingers between hers. "I just want to keep my team in one piece, that's all." Fay looked back up at him, studying his face for a few minutes and breaking into a smile. Fox watched with interest as she did so, and he also noticed the colour of her hair she had just been curling. He decided to change the subject, albeit slightly abruptly.

"Is your hair naturally blue, or is it dyed?" he asked, hoping she wouldn't take any offence. The white dog looked up, perhaps a little taken aback by the question, but smiled and undid her headscarf, letting a curtain of numerous small blue bangs fall out and cover her eyes in an immense fringe. She brushed it out the way, giggling and laid the pink material next to her.

"I dye it," she explained. "My mother used to when she was my age, she said it looked better than the usual white," she explained, taking to curling another strand. Fox looked appreciatively at it – the blue certainly looked very nice on her, it complimented her eyes and eye shadow. It almost seemed to work up in steps of blue, as her eyes were a light cerulean, her eye shadow a bright, mid-range blue and her hair a deep, regal sort of blue.

"It looks very nice," he commented, cocking his head to get another look at her chosen colour scheme of pink and yellow clothing, with blue around the face; it certainly looked very attractive, and he couldn't avoid going a little red.

"Does it look better close up?" she then asked, going a little red as she turned to face him. Fox blinked at the question, not expecting anything of the sort – he had to go and think quickly on his feet again (though technically he wasn't on his feet, but thinking on your arse didn't have the same sort of appeal when he thought it inside his head) as he prepared to try and analyse Fay's face. However, he didn't need to think of the right answer when he saw her; he could only say what he really thought.

"You look… amazing!" he blurted as he saw how each bit of her closer up. Her eye shadow was peppered with little silver chips that glittered in the dull light from his cabin's lighting system. Her eyes seemed to shine as well in the light, making them look like nothing else he'd ever seen. At this short distance, he could see the little rings of elastic that held her individual bangs together, but they were a silver wire which gave the same effect as her eyeliner. If anything, her face seemed to glitter somewhat, and he could do nothing but stare. Fay smiled even wider, and returned the hold on Fox's hand.

"Thank you," she whispered, smiling up at him. "You look even nicer up close as well…" she said, trailing off as she reached out to run a finger along a scar on his cheek. Fox blinked at the way she'd been able to locate it; as he himself had forgotten the event in which he got it. He pushed it to the side of his head though – something to remember once Fay was gone – and concentrated instead on the dog opposite him. Both of them stared at each other for a long time, all the time going redder, and occasionally trying to avert their eyes. Fox cleared his throat and tried to think of a new subject, his mind eventually finding something to talk about a little more.

"Your mother dyed her hair as well?" he asked, and Fay ran her free hand through the series of bangs once again as she nodded silently. Fox wasn't so much asking the question as trying to get more information out on the subject. After all, he copied his father's fashion sense in every way except the dark sunglasses, so it was logical that Fay did what her mother used to do.

"She was big into fashion when she was in high school," explained Fay, beginning to play with the strands yet again, possibly something she did to focus. "She always had it this shade of blue, but gave up dying it after she had me. She suggested I try it when I was eight, and I liked it – but I also like a sort of dull lime green," she explained. Fox looked quizzically at her, his brow creased. Something didn't seem to be adding up.

"If you prefer the green, why do you have the blue?" he asked, and Fay simply shrugged, her fingers stopped halfway through running through a series of bangs.

"I switch on a monthly basis," she eventually said, having stayed silent for a while; during which Fox suddenly found himself looking at her large, floppy ears, and admiring the many different earrings she had. There were ones shaped as stars, some basic ring ones in many different colours, and he couldn't help wondering what it would sound like if she span round, and all of them jingled together. He smiled at the idea, and only snapped out of his reverie when Fay placed a finger under his muzzle and turned it to look at her smiling face as well. "What are you grinning about, then?" she asked, with her head cocked a little to the side. Fox blushed a little as he mumbled out his answer.

"I just thought… well, what would happen with your earrings if you sort of did a twirl," he admitted abashedly. He looked away from Fay slightly, and shook his head a little – perhaps Peppy had been right when he said these girls would have an effect on him – before he'd met Miyu or Fay he wouldn't have ever imagined asking a question like that. However, it seemed it wasn't an odd thing to ask, because Fay stepped off the bed and took a pose in the middle of the cabin. With nothing but a short smile at the bemused vulpine captain, the spaniel placed one foot in front of the other, and gave a quick half-turn with her body, then replacing her back foot to turn round again, and then again, and again…

Fox could only assume that the girl before him had had practice at this sort of high-speed acrobatics, because whenever he had tried to do something like that when he was younger, he would eventually spin out of control and end up on his backside, a good metre or more from where he had begun. Fay, however, didn't seem to be moving an inch from where she was twirling, her arms extended in front and behind her – and then Fox saw what was happening. Her ears, being pulled out by the centrifugal forces, were slowly rising until they were almost vertical, and suddenly Fox realised the from the top, Fay would have looked like a white, four-bladed propeller. The earrings weren't jingling as she spun however, so the mercenary had to drop that idea, until of course Fay began to get dizzy.

She put a foot wrong by accident; Fox seemed to see it all in slow motion as she jerked forward, putting both arms in front of her now to steady herself and her ears flew forward, causing the 'clink' Fox had been expecting. Now, though, he wasn't too bothered about a noise her jewellery made – and he leapt from the bed to grab her in order to prevent her falling over for the second time today.

Fay still had a great deal of energy left in her from the spin though, and though Fox got a grip on her, the pair of them were sent careering into Fox's chair where they lay panting slightly, not making any noise or speaking. The only thing in the air was their breathing from the rush of adrenaline that had occurred, and the light 'tinkle' of Fay's many earrings. Fox took in a breath, and was the first to speak.

"Were you a dancer?" he asked between gasps of breath. Fay looked round at him and nodded breathlessly, pushing a bit of hair out of her vision and taking in a bit of breath herself, which Fox felt through his arms wrapped around her waist for safety.

"Junior school pantomime," she gasped, not sweating like Fox was; but panting hard to get rid of the heat energy in her body, another trait held by some of the more feral canines that had evolved into what Fay was nowadays. Fox anthromorphs, for some reason, had shrugged that bit off and now simply sweated – though as the captain had done no more exercise than simply run to stop a crewmember from falling over, there was none of the sweat present. "I was meant to represent the magical weather-vane," she elaborated. Fox gave a little sigh of understanding, remembering the compass-like pose she must have had from when she was turning so fast. He opened his moth to say something, when the door to the room was opened.

"Oh," was the curt reply from Peppy Hare as he saw a panting Fay in Fox's arms, in his favourite comfy seat. "Oh dear," he muttered to himself, closing the door and walking away without waiting for an answer. Fox stared after his mentor, angry at the way he had just been judged; the way their position must have appeared to someone else only just dawning on him. Fay, however, seemed to take it worse than he did.

"I'll… I'll go sort out my cabin," she whispered, her head bowed as she gently prised Fox's hands away from her midriff and got to her feet, still breathing hard. Her captain quickly got to his feet and placed a hand on her shoulder just before she got to the door, and looked her hard in the eyes.

"You haven't done anything wrong. I'll explain to Peppy, just don't accept any flak he gives you," he insisted, and the dog's face brightened a little. They stayed looking at each other for another minute or so; then Fay leant forward, and without any prior warning, gave Fox a peck on the cheek. With a mouthing of 'thank you', she opened the cabin door and stepped out with a light wave around the corner.

Fox blinked at the kind gesture, and smiled warmly, retaining the happy expression even as the door slid shut.


	4. Chapter 4 Part 1

Fox pulled on his gloves with a flourish quite unlike him as he exited his room, falling into step alongside his piloting partner today. Though the young pilot was rarely known as someone who let go of things, Fox always had a new pair of gloves for each flight, his joke about this being that the gloves always had some 'luck' made into each one, and after a good flight, all of it would be used up by the next flight. He'd never proved this, nor had anyone else, but they certainly couldn't disprove the theory, and as such Fox continued to go through several millions of gloves each year.

Miyu, on the other hand, seemed to be wearing the same pair of gloves that she'd worn the first time she'd touched the simulator. They were fingerless, leather ones that were worn down so much it was possible to see her individual spots on the back of her hand through the material. As Fox stepped beside her, she noticed him tightening his gloves, and grinned.

"Whatever works," she murmured off-handedly, pulling on the cords of her own gloves. Fox didn't notice at them, and stared at her hand in bemusement before he realised they were just extremely thin leather gloves. Her fur being rusty brown, white and black didn't make them easier to spot amongst her real markings. He mentioned this to her, and got a sultry smile in response.

"I just like the grip fresh gloves give," he went on, admiring the palms of the silver palladium-thread hand wear. Miyu frowned, looking over at the palms herself, and then at her own.

"Like I say, whatever works for you. I'm pretty sure I've got much more grip with mine," she insisted, clapping her hands together and apparently being unable to move them sideways to prove her point. Fox gave a short laugh, and shook his head.

"It works for me, and I'm pretty sure it works for you too," he said. "And I'm willing to put five credits on that." Though the lynx may have raised an eyebrow at that, Fox was deeply into having gambles with Falco, and Fox found Miyu to probably be one to take up and lose a bet. True to his expectations, the girl removed her own gloves, and caught the pair Fox threw her.

"And make it ten credits, Foxy," she threw back, somehow having managed to find yet another Falco-ism in mid-air, pulling on the new ones and stuffing her old ones in her jacket pocket.

"C'mon, you don't want to lose that much," Fox teased as they reached the hangar door and it slid open with a pneumatic hiss. "It suits your jacket, anyway," he cut in quickly as he sensed a comeback in the air. Though Fox was just doing the trick of feeding his partner's ego, it had some truth to it. Miyu's new fighter's jacket and boots made a nice link with each other and her new gloves, offering a clean sheen in contrast to her scruffy red shirt, ruffled fur and faded jeans.

"Compliments won't work on me, Foxy, unless they're followed up," Miyu whispered in his ear as Slippy Toad turned round from his position on one of the LandMasters, giving a brief nod to the pair of them before sliding down one of the tilted panels and flopping to the ground with an audible 'thump'. Fox hurried over to Slippy, Miyu's message forgotten for a second as he helped the frog up.

"Thanks," breathed the amphibian. "I take it you're wanting to take off?" he asked Fox, not really looking at the lynx, approaching her captain's side slowly. The older of the two furs nodded and laughed.

"I've never wanted to vent the hangar with you still in it, and I never will, buddy," he explained, slapping Slippy on the back. The frog blushed a little, and waddled off towards the control booth by the corner of the room. As he began skittering around the computer-infested box, making various adjustments, Fox picked up a pair of neck-bracers, and threw one to Miyu. "I know they're not cool, but better than snapping your neck," he explained, snapping the main bit around his neck, and placing his head snugly against the memory foam that made the back piece.

"Thanks," Miyu replied with a smile, clipping her own in place. "So, which is mine?" she asked, looking at the six ships arranged around the hangar, four Arwings and two more heavy-support ships that she didn't recognise.

"We're both the Arwings with blue wings," Fox explained, motioning towards the ships in question, racked above each other on one wall. As they watched, cranes began to winch the pair of them out, lowering them to the ground for better access. "The red ones are Falco's and Fay's - and those Guardians are for Peppy and Slippy," Fox continued, pointing them all out as they went. As she approached, the lynx gave a little pout.

"I was expecting my own choice of colours," she mock-moaned, clambering onto the wing of the nearer of the two ships. "At least a more purple-ish version of this blue," she added, hopping up and down on one of the coloured sections. Fox looked round as his cockpit section hissed open slowly and laughed.

"If you have the three thousand and five-hundred credits to pay for a re-colour, then you may indeed have it in sky-blue pink with a dash of yellow," he told her solemnly. "But for now, I'm the captain, with the money, and I say we both have Snow White and Cobalt Blue ships," he added, beginning to swing into the cockpit. True to his expectations, when he looked at her closed cockpit once it was done, she was sticking her tongue out at him dismissively, and fired up her engines with an angry roar, which shallowed out to a smooth purr once they were at the right heat.

"Are these tuned?" her voice came in over Fox's communicator, her face appearing in one corner of his visual screen assistant, showing him a live uplink to an optical fibre camera in her ship. All fighters had these links to each other, and also to the control centre on the Star Fox bridge - Miyu was forced to see the sight of Fox shaking his head, and her ears drooped.

"We've barely flown most of these," he told her. "Our older ones were, but these are fresh stock from Phoenix Enterprises," he explained, igniting his own engines to the right launch temperature in a more sedate way - starting slowly and building up the temperature.

"Will I get a chance at some point to get myself dirty inside this baby?" Miyu asked, patting the front dash board of her ship, and Fox bobbed his head from side to side., trying to ignore the other ways that sentence could be interpreted.

"We'll see. Slippy doesn't like many people playing with his speciality on this ship," he explained, and the tufted feline nodded in acknowledgement. "You liked playing about with the ships?" the fox asked as the doors to the hangar began to slide open, and the air inside puffed out the tiny crack between the blast doors in a second, exploding into a shower of oxygen crystals.

"Yeah, but I like the illegal stuff," Miyu commented idly, her face vanishing from Fox's view as she bent down to flick a few switches. Fox frowned for a moment, worrying about what she meant by the 'illegal stuff'. As far as he was aware, Arwings weren't able to be upgraded with anything other than factory amelioration parts. "Something on your mind, Foxie?" she then asked as her head popped up again, and she noticed his frown.

"Nah," said the vulpine, deciding not to bring that subject up and hitting the ignition switches below him as well. "Just a bit nervous that you might get the jump on me, that's all," he then shot at her, grinning as he activated the rear thrusters and shot out the now much wider opening between the hangar doors. He caught the surprised stare of Ms Lynx in the corner of his cockpit window, before her teeth gritted, and his radar showed that she too, had taken off. As well as the five blank spots where the rest of his teams' pictures would be on the right column of his ship's computer screen, there was a pulse radar in the bottom-left corner, a damage monitor above that and other readouts scrolling across the top of the screen in Cornerian, such as his velocity in Klicks per Hour; outer temperatures and pressures and, what he thought a very nice touch, the D-Ball results from the main league.

"Damn, they've got a refrigerated drinks compartment here too!" cried out Miyu, and Fox glanced over to his screen. Noting his questioning look, Miyu nodded. "To the left of your seat, grab the white handle," she explained, eagerly, and as Fox watched, she lifted a can of beer to her muzzle and began to drink eagerly. "No 'flying under the influence of alcohol' rules out here in space!" she called out, and with a burst of speed, caught up to Fox's side where she sat grinning and waving at him madly.

"No alcohol when flying in combats," Fox warned seriously, banking into a steep curve and hoping Miyu would follow him. To his relief, she did, with quite some skill, though he knew she wasn't that much of a match for either him or Falco. She tended to tilt her wings not quite enough, so her turns were sweeping and quick, but not precise and accurate. "Out that away, and follow me," Fox ordered, trying not to sound too imposing. The lynx nodded obediently, and stored away the drink, her purple eyes narrowing, and Fox smiled as he saw the very epitome of an aggressive, competitive pilot.

"Roger, captain," she called back, and launched her engines again at a higher rate to blast herself closer to the back of Fox's Arwing. Fox didn't reply, but simply began a series of sweeping, long turns, and to his delight, the radar indicated that Miyu was keeping up very well, often attaining even higher speeds than he was in the long bends.

"Six-KK!" Fox exclaimed as he saw the peak launch speed from a particularly aggressive corner by the tufted feline, and she winked back from her own ship. Evidently, they did still teach short-hand at the academy, though as she was only two years his junior, he doubted the syllabus could have changed much. He knew that outright speed was never enough, though, and as such began making a bunch of much tighter weaves, not around any markers in particular, but hoping the girl could at least keep a Klick or two in range of his ship.

As he eventually eased off and began cruising, however, he had been glad he'd decided not to take this training session into Meteos, because plainly, Miyu's corning skills were utterly hopeless. She had flown wide on every swerve, and was evidently jangled by the high switching of G-forces on her, as she was holding her head as she began to cruise over to his ship. However, she suddenly stopped in mid-space, and Fox thought at first she'd suffered a fault. However, after a turn in his ship, and he went back to facing her, it was revealed that she was still burning her engines, but nothing was happening.

"I'm jammed!" she cried, and her picture in the side of his cockpit showed tinges of panic. The vulpine looked over the blue-winged ship, and swore under his breath. A relatively large silver ship was gliding towards the two, one Fox recognised with a twinge of anger.

"_Miyu, they're pirates of the worst kind that have got you in a tractor beam,"_ would be the brutally honest thing to say, but as much as she knew she would berate him for being picky with words, he couldn't tell her that. He instead cleared his throat, and narrowed his eyes.

"I'm going to disable them, so get ready to make a run for it," he ordered, firing his engines and shooting towards the small cloud of fighters that were pouring from the pirates' mother ship's hangar bay. A face flashed into one of the empty squares at the side of his cockpit, the yellow ring indicating it as a 'possibly hostile guest' to the communication system.

"Nice to see you again," hissed a horribly honey-suckled voice, and Fox glared openly at the female swan's head as she batted her eyelashes at him. The girl had been in his year at the academy, one of only four, in fact, and was default failed by Pepper as were all other three girls in his year – sexism had been high on the military's agenda at that point, and each of the girls had taken their fails in different ways. Cyrene Swan had simply decided she didn't need a licence to fly, much the same as Katt Monroe, only had chosen the path of the pirate as opposed to the mercenary.

"Cyrene, back off. You've no business here," Fox declared, pulling up short and directing the excess energy he had sent to his engines to balance it all out in terms of shields and weapon power. He instructed Miyu to do the same over a private channel as the white bird laughed, one that sounded like the tinkling of bells, and both elated and disgusted Fox at the same time.

"Oh, McCloud, I have business with everyone, everywhere, though they may not realise it," she replied back, a glint in her eyes. Miyu was also in on the conversation, and Fox was treated to the sight of her teeth bared and hackles raised at the swan's taunts.

"Who is this bitch?" she snarled, pounding the unresponsive flight controls with no response. The swan only giggled, but Fox wasn't able to respond as the small Midget fighters had already begun their attack on his craft. These ships were no more than basic transport and attack, given they composed of nothing more than a cockpit, two wings, a single engine (they turned using the pilot's weight thrown to one side) and a pair of lancers on either wing.

"I'd gladly tell you my history, if you'd agree to tell me yours also?" she cooed, and Fox desperately wished he could close his ears against the sickly sweet voice – the best he could do was keep them folded back. He began his raking fire, and three enemy fighters burst into nothing beneath his fire. He'd long managed to numb the feelings of guilt that so easily came as he saw the dead furs floating in the void of space, but the Midgets were so pathetically armoured, the pilots must have known they were going to their deaths by flying one. They didn't even have any shields.

"Then you can shut your mouth, lady!" snapped back Miyu. "And give me back control of my ship!" Fox swerved around two, launching a smaller version of the gravity bomb that took out one ship utterly and crippled the other's wing.

"Oh, where would the fun be in that?" the swan laughed again mirthlessly and mirthfully at the same time, and Fox noticed Miyu looked as sick as he felt at the sound of Cyrene's voice. "I do have business with you, cat, and I wish to have it over with very quickly," she added, her voice taking on a darker tone, and Miyu flinched in her seat, desperately putting her head down and hammering on the many switches and levers on her ship that refused to respond to her touch.

"Miyu, get reinforcements from the Great Fox!" Fox ordered his crewmate as another cloud of Midgets soared out the pirate drop ship's hatch. Another eight had been blown to pieces by his latest swoop on them, and the remaining two were backing away to join the latest bunch. "That's an order!" he added at Miyu's unhappy expression at the thought of asking for help – but he knew a firm word from a captain would inspire an order in even someone as freelance as Katt Monroe. He knew – he'd tried.

"Yes, captain," she responded, and her voice went dead from the conversation, though her mouth was still moving as she spoke to anyone who was answering on Star Fox's mother ship. Cyrene smiled a cold smile and turned to Fox, batting her eyelashes once again – the vulpine took no notice as the next cloud of small ships began their attack on him.

"Miyu, is she?" she asked coolly, eliciting no response from the focussed mercenary as he wove around, launching bright laser bolts at the wee ships in front of him. Six of twenty-two were down by the time he left the swarm. As he did an about-turn to fire again at them, he noticed that the tractor beam had been pulling Miyu towards the ship all the time he had occupied with the Midgets, and she was now almost inside the front hatch of the craft. "So, is Pepper passing girls nowadays?" she then asked, a more urgent edge to her sugary voice.

"No, I got her before final marks were given out," Fox told her, and it had been true. More likely than not, if he was picking graduates, Miyu and Fay would not have been among his test candidates. The swan's beak was held together tightly now, her eyes boring into him.

"What," she insisted. "Did she have that I didn't? I would never have fallen for something as elementary as a tractor beam, nor would I have been one to make such an appalling mess of those turns…"

"Because you're a power-hungry, evil harlot, and I could never have stood you on my team!" roared Fox, his anger snapping and he loosed a couple of shots off in the direction of the control bridge. He instantly terminated the conversation with Cyrene, and was about to another turn to eliminate the remaining ten midgets, when another two streams of light raked across the flock, and leaving only three for the vulpine to wipe clear. He didn't thank the two faces coming into focus on his communications just then, instead he hammered madly at the screen as Miyu's image disappeared. Her ship had been tugged into the bay, and it was only just beginning to close shut.

"Got more than just a training session, didn't she?" called the first voice from his speakers, but Fox didn't smile at the blue falcon's jokes. One of his men – well, women – was in that ship, and he wasn't going to abandon her.

"Have you got a plan?" asked Fay, her face concerned as she piloted her ship up to the flank of Fox's, the other side of Falco's. Fox let a wicked grin tug at the sides of his mouth, and he nodded.

"What sort of weaponry have we got in our ships?" he asked referring chiefly to Falco, as he doubted very much that Fay would be packing much more than her blaster. The avian didn't disappoint.

"My rocket launcher, three blasters on my person, an assault rifle, and one of those ring-blasters," he offered, what could only be a smile plastered across his beak. "We aren't going to be getting that nice swan girl with them, are we?" he pleaded, and the vulpine groaned. Falco had always done his best to win over the swan in the academy, her being the only avian girl in the year. Cyrene, however, had no eyes for the blue bird whatsoever – it seemed the male bird was still unable to let go of the notion he could possibly have her.

"Maybe," Fox bit back, doing his best to clear his head. Falco looked on with a rather unreadable expression, but Fay's voice drifted over the comm. and Fox felt a bit better for that.

"Fox, if there's anyone who knows how to get Miyu out of that ship, it's likely to be you," she insisted, and Fox had the distinct impression that had they been in the same room, she would have laid her hand on his arm or hand. Fortunately because of that, he didn't have to endure the taunts that would come from Falco if he saw him blushing at all.

"She's got a point, Fox. You aced even the teacher on boarding operations," the bird nodded, and Fox fought to keep his chest from swelling. He remembered back to that lesson at the academy, and reasoned how they could get in to this ship, especially since the hangar had sealed now. Quickly, after a bit of sucking on his lower lip, his eyes lit up, and his mouth smiled a smile that anyone who saw it on the street would have called outright demented. "Oh, no," whispered Falco. "That smile never, ever means something good's going to happen. Fox is an evil, scheming bastard when he smiles like that."

"But it's a good plan?" asked Fay, and the wickedness from the smile faded a little from Fox's teeth as he nodded. He flicked a few switches on his board, and began to move into a new position in the Arwings' orbit around the heavy drop ship.

"It's a bit unorthodox," he admitted. "But it's very, very good."


	5. Chapter 4 Part 2

Daeniel paced his small sector of the wing impatiently, gripping his gun barrel harder and harder with every circuit of the gunnery bay. He had signed up to Cyrene Swan's military force instantly after his expulsion from the Katinan Military, and had been overjoyed with regular shooting and flying practices, not the pointless parading he had become used to. But now, when they had a proper enemy, when there was an orange alert pulsing through the deck, he was kept down here instead of out flying.

"_Really,"_ he thought bitterly. _"This is the most pathetic place I could be. The gunners have their weapons to protect them, and nobody's going to board this ship,"_ he went on in his mental tirade, lifting his weapon, a mix somewhat of blaster and light-rifle, and pointing it at imaginary enemies backed against the wall to his opposite.

"Die now!" he roared gleefully, a smile on his face, and pulled the trigger. The safety was on, but at exactly that moment, the metal in the walls exploded in a spray of plasma, and all the air was blown straight out the vacuum and crystallised in front of the airless body of Daeniel as a pair of Arwing noses punched through the hole in the wall.

* * *

Fox pressed the catch on his cockpit as soon as the ship had thrown itself a good distance into Cyrene's ship's hull. He had put on his vacuum suit along with his specially designed mask, and began breathing normally from the oxygen supply on his back as he landed on the now frozen floor , the rubber soles of his boots preventing him from sliding. These suits had been Slippy's invention, for being able to do ship-to ship wing fights, or to repair a damaged ship. Now, though, Fox had decided on them for punching into the ship directly. 

"_Well, it worked, fuzz brains," _muttered Falco grudgingly over the communications. Looking Over, Fox almost baulked at the sheer weirdness of Falco's face piece. It was long and triangular, with a long spine out the back of the head. In fact, had it not been for the blue behind the visor, it would have been a job to recognise his friend

"My crazy plans always work," insisted the fox, cutting off the inter-suit link to change channels before Falco retorted. "Nice shooting there, Fay," he relayed to the white canine, and when she replied, it was a job to hear her over the whine of engines and the cracking of metal as her plasma cannons cooled down in the icy void of space.

"_It was no sweat,"_ she replied cheerfully. _"You're both in?"_ she added, a bit more worried-sounding. Fox replied the affirmative, and Falco added his voice to the channel to confirm it. The avian went on to investigate the frosted body of the luckless guard who'd been in the room at the time of the blast as Fay whispered one last thing, over a private channel, to Fox, _"Take care, Fox. And get Miyu out as well."_

"I promise," replied Fox, and he swore he could see the white dog smiling as the communication went off. "Got any key-cards on him?" asked the fox as he crossed over to Falco, who was going though the guards' pockets.

"No, think this was a generic grunt if anything," replied the bird dismissively. "He's got a weird rifle though, take a look," he added, throwing the weapon over to Fox. As McCloud inspected the weapon, he had to admit that Falco had a point. The rifle seemed to have five different barrels in different positions, some of which weren't pointing forward. It also seemed to have been put together rather crudely.

"Custom weapon?" suggested Fox, looking down one of the two sights, which appeared to be a pair of ancient binoculars ripped in two. The falcon shrugged, taking one of his own weapons off his back and checking it. Fox dropped the crude gun and held out his hand for the assault rifle, which he caught by the ammo clip.

"Who cares?" asked the bird. "We've got us a crew member to rescue," he added, sighting down his ring blaster. The weapon worked similarly to traditional pump-action weapons such as a shotgun, but fired a pulse of light that expanded to form a compression ring that was particularly effective in corridor clearing. The two friends nodded at each other, and the bird got to his feet as they made for the airlock doors on the far side of the circular room. Fortunately for the pair, there was no need for the key card they had searched the dead fur's body for. Falco smashed the 'open' button with his fist, and the hydraulic doors obediently opened to let them through.

As soon as the doors behind them shut, Falco kept watch as Fox disconnected his vacuum wear, sucking in the oxygen being pumped in to the chamber gladly. It might still be recycled, but it felt good to be able to breathe outside a mask. The doors on the other side were beginning to open up as Fox picked up his weapon, meaning Falco had to fight, if they had to, still suited up.

The doors opened, and instantly, the two mercenaries leapt out with a hail of shots coming from their weapons. Fox's rifle was launching laser shot after laser shot into the left corridor, as a single shot from Falco's cleared the right from the two that were there. Fox stepped gingerly over to the two he had downed as Falco removed himself from his suit, and felt a bit of bile rise in his throat as he noticed one of the faces.

"Falco, it's Marmon," he whispered slightly, and the bird sprinted over instantly, swearing loudly as he recognised the marmoset who'd failed in their year, and left Corneria bitter and angry, nothing either Bill, Fox or Falco said stopping him. Fox eventually got to his feet, clearing his throat and re-charging his weapon. "C'mon," he said shortly. "We've got a job to do."

* * *

Fox and Falco charged around another corner, more or less oblivious to the shouts of Peppy in their ears as he told them to leave Miyu and get back to the Great Fox. Both were in a fierce fight, and neither was about to step out of it willingly. Only Slippy's occasional interjections as to which route to take registered in their ears, along with Fay's notes on her damage to the rest of the ship - Fox had ordered her to pound the swan's ship with her plasma cannons on full power at weak points, and the spaniel seemed to be doing spectacularly - the hum and movement of the ship seemed to have stopped, so the engines must be immobilised. 

"To the right!" roared Fox, and the pair of them skidded round, their metal-soled boots sending sparks whizzing along the pathways in the direction they would have come. A few seconds of firing, and the pirates that had been in the general direction of the two mercs' weapons were incacipated, neither of them checking to see if they were really dead or simply unconscious.

"_Next right, door on the end," _Slippy squeaked, and both older pilots worded their thanks to the tubby frog. Peppy began another tirade over the comm.-link, but neither was prepared to listen. They recommenced their run up the corridor, skidding once again to the right and being faced with something that nigh on made them fall over.

"Oh, frag…" whispered Falco as the six-foot-five lion before them began to spin the barrel of his Gatling Gun, a grin etched over his face and murder staring the two mercenaries in the face from the minigun. Neither really paused for much longer as soon as they got a view of what they were going to fight through, and with another spray of sparks in both directions, they skidded back around the corner just as the leonid opened fire. Both fox and falcon could see the deadly column of tracer fire pulverise the air where they had been seconds before, and drill into the wall opposite. "Any plan?" asked Falco, sceptically as the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of the gun became more frequent.

"We wait until it overheats," said Fox plainly, taking the time to reload his weapon. "Then you hit him with the rocket launcher. Falco's beak, difficult as it was due to the structure, creased into a definite grin as he heard he was going to be using the 'R-L' word. Within seconds, he had it off his back, and extended to its' full size.

"Here goes!" called out the bird as the fire suddenly and abruptly cut off, leaping just around the edge and loosing off one of his deadly payloads. Fox pulled him back in as it spiralled away towards the lion, and both were forced to squint as the light, smoke and shrapnel from the end of the corridor flew all the way up to their position, and then as a final, rather disturbing finale, one of the Gatling Gun's barrels and what looked distinctively like a leg.

"Good shot, I suppose," murmured Fox, peering round the wall and his eyes going wide at the carnage there. Aside from having given the atrium a nice new red paint job, Falco had managed to knock the hinges, along with the handle and door label, off the steel barrier at the edge. Fox quickly took off, realising just a bit too late what the red job would do to grip, and had to fight for balance as he nearly slipped up on a bit of gore. He backed off it, ignoring the avian's laughter, and scraped his boot sole on the decking to clean it somewhat.

"Come on, lets' slide," suggested Falco as he regained himself and had swapped his rocket launcher for the ring-blaster. After a raised eyebrow from the fox, he shrugged. "You know, we could do a door slam by sliding, like on ice," he offered. Fox turned it over in his head, and considered the only thing wrong with it was the idea of essentially ice-skating through someone's internal organs.

"_Doubt they wouldn't have done it to mine, though,"_ considered the vulpine as he remembered the look of gleeful murder on the lion's face. He gave a short nod to Falco, and the pair of them took up a running stance on the dry tread plate. With a few hand signals, they counted down from three, and as soon as their hands were clenched in fists, no digits raised, they launched themselves off the makeshift starting line, keeping their feet apart as if boarding as soon as they hit the blood. While Falco whooped, Fox kept his attention on the door, and threw his shoulder forward to smash apart the door, his action mirrored by a gleeful Falco.

"What…?" was the only thing anyone in the room managed to say as the damaged door was thrown forward and two figures slid in, hosing down the soldiers in the room. Two had crumpled to the ground from Falco's concussion ring, and another had gone down from a few clean shots to the chest from Fox. Said vulpine instantly noticed the only cell that was occupied, one on the left and he jogged over to Miyu's holding point.

"Hey, nice of you to drop in on me," she cooed as both mercenaries withdrew their blasters, charged them up, and melted the lock on the door. Falco and Fox both grinned, but there was a profound difference in the fact that Falco's smile was one that could have been accompanied by somewhat of a swagger and Fox's of a rub behind the ears and a blush.

"You good with these things?" asked Falco, passing her his two spare blasters as she stepped out the now useless cage. The lynx caught one in each hand, and turned them over, inspecting them critically.

"Oh, I suppose I may as well be, if it's my way out," she replied cockily, and Falco blinked un surprise at hearing something he would more likely have said. As Fox shot him a grin that seemed to mock him at getting his own self turned upon, the bird scoffed and stepped to the edge of the room.

"I'll go and organise our escape," called the bird over his shoulder, not waiting for his captain and bounding off, the 'clang' of his metallic boots echoing down the corridors until they could no longer be heard. The lynx stared after him with an arched eyebrow, and as soon as the sound began to fade, she turned to Fox,

"So, what's our plan?" she asked as they began to walk carefully towards the blasted door, and out into the gore-stained corridor. Miyu didn't seem to mind the slapping noise her boots made as she walked through the mess, even though she did seem to struggle to keep her footing.

"Fay's outside, pounding the ship with her plasma cannons," Fox explained, and a rumble below them emphasised that. "Slippy's pulled out mine and Falco's Arwings - we did a pierce boarding - and moving them to the hangar. we're going to boost out," Fox briefed her as they followed the map Slippy was uploading to Fox's wrist communicator. The lynx nodded as they continued along the more or less empty corridors, the pair of them dispatching any remnants of Falco's wicked gun work with ease. However, after they got to one last atrium, just before Fox hit the activation button to open the doors, Miyu grabbed his wrist. He spun round, in alarm, but Miyu had no look of that on her face.

"Hey Fox?" she asked. "Thanks a lot for coming to get me," she added, running a free hand through her short-cropped black hair. Fox blushed a little, muttering a little ''snothing' as he turned to open the doors again, but Miyu kept her grip, and slid towards him a little. Fox was suddenly faced with the completely unexpected move of the lynx moving closer towards him, and planting a kiss on his now scarlet and burning hot cheek. Miyu then drew back, mischief sparkling in her violet eyes as she guided the stunned captain's hand towards the button on the door.

"Got us our ships, birdie-boy?" called out the feline as she stepped past into the hangar, letting go of Fox's hand and letting him slump against the wall inside the main ship. Though there was no answer at first, a body dropped from a high level, landing right at Miyu's feet, and she looked up to see the blue falcon making his way down the ladder to the upper gantry.

"I don't, Slippy does," replied the bird, his head tilted and a very 'what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it?' expression crossing his beak. The tufted cat just shrugged, and slipped round the side of the bird to face the frog she'd met earlier in the hangar, whom was standing on a trio of ships, a squat bomber supporting the indigo and red Arwings of Mr McCloud and Lombardi respectively.

"I've got yours de-clamped, but be careful, Ms Lynx!" squeaked out the voice of the frog. "I don't know what they could have done to it in the time you were in custody!" Miyu flashed a short smile up at Slippy as she slid into the open and waiting cockpit of her Arwing.

"Thanks for that," she called out just as the glass around her began to slam shut. The second it did, and the inter-ship communications lit up, she was besieged by a torrent of squealing from her friend on the orbiting Arwing as the white canine saw her friend was in one piece. "Missed me?" she asked as soon as Fay stopped for a breath. The dog nodded eagerly, her large ears flapping back and forth.

"I knew Fox would get you out!" she exclaimed happily. "You're all right, Miyu?" she added, a bit of worry escaping into her tone. Her lynx friend shook her head and grinned, at which Fay gave a sigh of relief. "Oh, my word Miyu - I was so worried…"

"Girls, save the happy re-union for later," muttered Falco, as he mounted his ship and joined the conversation. "Hopefully when we're back on the ship, and then you can do it properly, with mud and pyjamas," he added with a malicious grin spreading over his beak. Fay gasped, placed a hand to her mouth and giggled whist blushing a deep red, whereas Miyu took a slightly different tone.

"How about I shove your Arwing up your ass when we get back to the ship?" she bit back with the hackles on her neck raised. Fay's compusture broke at this point, and she fell about in laughter at Falco's shocked expression, and Slippy who had boarded his ship as well, did his best to restrain a croak of laughter as he caught the end of the threat. It was now Falco's turn to bring a tinge of embarrassment to his cheeks, and the feathers began to look red.

"Who made Falco blush?" asked Fox as his face finally joined the link. "They deserve double the cut from our next job," he said with good humour, and both Slippy and Fay burst into a snort of derisive laughter. Miyu grinned and winked through the vidicom, and Fox went a little red before he nodded.

"Captain, I claim injustice!" interjected Falco as the hum of Arwing G-Diffusers filled the hangar. "She was claiming she was about to inflict serious harm on me by…" The last few dregs of Falco's self-esteem faded as Fox joined in the laughter, and as he wiped a tear of mirth from his eye, he grinned at the bird.

"Well, good on her. You've needed it for a while," the captain added, and Falco shut off the link with a snarl from his beak. Alone in his cockpit, though, Falco ran the words over in his head a few time, and couldn't help chuckling to himself.

"_I kinda like this girl…"_ he thought as he considered Miyu's attitude. _"It's like Katt, only she doesn't fancy me," _he decided. He leant back in his seat, and slid out one of the drinks from under his seat as his ship rocketed out of the hangar to form up alongside Fox's, and noticed Fox was blushing at something happening on the video screen. The cogs whirred in Falco's ego; and suddenly something that had seemed rather too far-fetched initially, what with Fox's previous attitude towards girls clicked.

"_She fancies Fox… or the other way around,"_ he realised, and felt a little bit of his ego squirm uncomfortably. Was this something he should be jealous of, pleased with? Could he help Fox, or tease him about it? He drummed his fingers on the joysticks for a while, unable to make his mind up about this whole Fox and Miyu thing. Maybe, even, he was just blowing it all up to suit his imagination.

"Oh, damn it," he decided, taking a swig of the can. "Too much to think about at the moment," he said to himself, and just as he liked it, no-one retorted or responded. Suddenly, though, the back of his ship flared with a horrible orange light, and a couple of seconds later, the back of his Arwing was sprayed with bits of metal. The bird swung the controls of his ship round and opened up the inter-ship link as he gazed across the ruined explosion of the ship he'd just escaped. "Holy frag!" he exclaimed. "What happened there?"

"I don't know," replied Fox, who looked as flabbergasted as he did. The entire ship seemed to have just ripped itself to pieces from the inside out, and only chunks of it were recognisable - the other bits were simply pattering themselves across the five craft. "Fay, do you think you hit something really vital with your plasma cannons?" he asked, concerned. Falco checked the girl's window in his view screen and saw that her eyes were closed, her head shaking in disbelief.

"No…" she murmured. "I'm sure… It was a HC-8 cruiser, I checked the non-lethal cripple points," she insisted, biting her lip as she scanned the other screens for traces of anything directed at her. Slippy was too busy staring, shocked, at the wreckage to add anything - Fox and Miyu were both checking the damage as well, then looking back at Fay in a concerned way. The bird himself looked at the carnage and shook his head.

"Fox, I doubt plasma cannons did this," Miyu interjected before Falco could applaud Fay on her good shooting. The bird gave the lynx a bit of a nasty look through the cameras, but grudgingly, she had a point.

"It was an explosion from inside," confirmed Slippy. "I think they set off a bomb inside." A relieved look began to creep at the edges of Fay's face, and a smile began to form as Fox added his opinions.

"Fay, it almost certainly wasn't you," he reassured the dog, and she nodded silently in thanks. Falco scoffed off-screen, flashing the spaniel a look of contempt. Who needed to be told they hadn't ripped a ship like that to pieces? It was a reward in itself, he thought to himself, seeing what he could do. Once again, he faded abruptly from the conversation, and drained a bit more of his drink.

"_Peppy may have a point,"_ he mused, though internally repulsed at the idea of agreeing with that old coot. _"Those two are going to be more trouble than they're worth…"_


	6. Chapter 5

The mood as the five ships re-entered the hangar was somewhat more sombre that the Star Fox team normally would have been in after a successful mission, even though Falco was still gloating somewhat over the victory, the fact of the matter was that none of the team had fired the crippling blow, it had been an inside saboteur job. The presence of a very angry hare, his glasses sliding just to the very edge of his nose, shouting at them all from within the control booth, had done nothing to help them at all. Falco and Miyu had shot the old mercenary some angry looks, Slippy and Fay had hurried on past without any desire to strike up something nasty, but Fox stayed behind as the rest of his crew went on ahead, doing his best to keep a neutral expression as the hare unleashed his tirade at him.

"…and for goodness sakes, using the Arwings as battering rams? Plasma cannons on full power for extended periods of time? Have you no consideration for these crafts…"

"_We never got to the bridge,"_ thought Fox, his mind miles away from his father's old wing mate. _"Was Cyrene still on the ship, even? I'd expected more resistance…"_ The vulpine's tail swished irritably as he remembered unfavourably the swan femme and her habit for abandoning her friends when the going went rough, from early academy days right to the very final simulator exams. It seemed it had never rubbed off.

"…Slippy didn't need to come out, you should have been able to keep it together yourself…"

"_Why destroy the ship though?"_ Fox hid his thoughtful state, holding back a creased forehead from the ranting rabbit. _"She didn't have any more use for it?"_ He sighed inwardly, shook his head a little, and returned to his telling-off.

"… from the moment I saw them they would get you into trouble, Fox," Peppy was lecturing, and the golden fox crossed his arms, growling a little. Peppy hadn't seen the way Miyu flew - it was speed on a level he hadn't seen before, though she did need a bit of work on the tight turns. He had yet to give Fay a test, but he was pretty sure she was as competent as her friend.

"We couldn't just run the team as it was, Pep," Fox replied respectfully, not voicing his inner opinions. The hare turned to him, irritation in his eyes, but defeat on his brow.

"No, but weren't there any more capable pilots?" he asked, and Fox growled audibly now. The elderly hare took a step back as the captain resorted to his slightly more feral roots.

"As I remember, Peppy, you walked out second from that interview room, saying you couldn't find any merit in the pilots we'd reviewed so far. Quite frankly, there were some very good pilots after you left, but Miyu and Fay were qualified well, and they weren't behaving or looked like idiots," Fox replied edgily, but his mentor came back with a verbal slap to the face.

"You hired them because they are women, Fox, you can't fool me," the rabbit insisted, brow furrowed and arms folded. Fox's eyes widened slightly, and a red tinge came to his cheek as the elder fur continued. "And pretty women too, eh?"

"I won't deny that they are very attractive…" began McCloud, carefully picking his words now. "But you know better than anyone that I don't judge books by their cover. What's your problem with female pilots? What's Pepper's problem, come to think of it?" Fox was getting slightly angrier now. Peppy replaced his pince-nez further up his nose and acted as though he hadn't heard anything.

"You are the captain, I suppose you're always right," said the old pilot scathingly, and he began to stride out of the hangar. Fox watched him leave with a feeling of loathing he'd never imagined he'd feel towards his father's old friend. Peppy had been like an uncle to him since both his parents had died, and for him to turn against him like that had stung him hard. The golden fox bit his lower lip and let himself fall against the railing that prevented more careless people from falling straight off the edge and onto the tool closet. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting his body slump somewhat as he let a lot of what had happened recently flush away from him.

"Hey there, golden boy," chirped a voice from the hangar door, and Fox looked up sharply to see Miyu there, leaning in the doorjamb with both feet off the floor, placed firmly against the opposite side of the steel frame so she wasn't actually on the ground at all. The mercenary captain took a moment to nod at the spectacle - though not much, it helped loosen him up, seeing someone else being light-hearted. Or, as it may be, showing off.

"Hey," replied Fox shortly, not making any move to go over to him - he wasn't sure what he could say to her, and guessed she was searching him out here for a reason. She'd evidently taken some time to change out of the flight gear, because the silver coated stuff was gone, and she just had on a pair of jeans and her red T-shirt, though she still wore her leather gloves and flight boots. She drew something out of her pocket, still suspended between the door frame, and tossed it to Fox in a blur of silver.

"I'll stick to what I know works, eh?" she grinned as Fox recognised the silver gloves he had given her at the beginning of the mission. A smile broke his muzzle and he tucked them into his belt as the lynx also smiled. "You looked like you needed a smile," she commented, finally dropping down and hopping up to the rail to sit next to him.

"I guess," replied Fox, observing his boots as he did his best to hide his blushing - the memory of the last time Miyu had come this close had come back, and was starting to give him an uncomfortable squirming sensation in his stomach. "Sorry our flight didn't go so well," he then added, to break the slightly awkward silence that had formed to his ears. The feline just brushed it off, though.

"Aw, it's no problem," she insisted, swinging her legs a little. "It was fun, that's the thing, eh?" Fox grinned a little wider, and he was forced to nod. The tufted cat laughed out loud and clapped him on the back, hopping down from the railing to stand on her feet, next to her captain. "Geez, you really do need to loosen up a bit," she insisted, looping an arm around his neck and instantly feeling the heat of the blushing coming off the fox.

The man in her arm was in the peculiar sensation of being tongue-tied, and being unable to think of what to say. He guessed he needed to put the academy years behind him, but the last mission had stoked the memories again somewhat. His rusty-brown wing mate seemed to catch up on the silence, and began to steer him towards the door.

"C'mon, lets' go find somewhere a bit more comfy, and get something to drink. I need at least three cups of caffeine," she muttered the last bit, and Fox grinned, still not saying anything. "You do look proper goofy grinning away like that," Miyu added, tapping Fox's nose and releasing his shoulders. Fortunately, the golden fur continued to walk beside her, leading her to one of the smaller rec rooms, the one usually used by him and Falco for playing games; with the purchase of personal consoles, though, the pair could often simply play in their rooms, and it seemed that was what the blue bird was doing. Fox opened the mini-fridge close by, and took out two bottles of a blue tinted liquid.

"Dunno what this is, but it tastes nice. Falco's addicted to it," Fox muttered, the first he'd spoken in a while, and he tossed the bottle to the lynx, who caught it in mid air, and instantly began to drink from it. Fox blinked, not quite sure how she was going it, until he noticed the cap impaled on one of her claws - it seemed that it was one little bit of the feral line had emerged again in Ms Miyu, and she knew one of the recreational uses for it.

"Damn, you should never have given me this. I'm gonna go as blue as ego-eagle back there if I keep drinking this," Miyu muttered, flopping down onto one of the inflatable chairs and retracting her claw, letting the metal tip slip off and clatter to the floor. Fox stifled a laugh as he heard the new nickname for Falco, and realised that Miyu could probably write a dictionary of nicknames for people. When he suggested this to her, she shook her head, still with a smile though.

"Couldn't be arsed," she said casually, taking another swig of the drink. "Besides, I'm not that great a writer, or reader. Had to get Fay to help me with a lot of that," she explained, and Fox frowned.

"Are you dyslexic?" he asked, finding the idea of someone not having much of an ability to read or write very confusing. To his further surprise, though, she shook her head, ruling out one of the possible outcomes.

"Nope, though I often got off the hook in classes by claiming that," she mused, taking another drink of the bottle and looking quizzically at the label. "Me and my brother just never got the right teaching," she explained, placing the bottle in the holder built into the arm rest of the chair to relax better.

"You've got a brother?" asked Fox, and Miyu opened her mouth to speak, but silenced it, and just nodded. An odd silence seemed to come over the lynx for a second, one Fox knew very well, though it did seem a bit difference to the awkwardness he felt when his parents were brought up in a conversation.

"Yeah," Miyu eventually said, nodded and looking a bit brighter. "Just the one - Amran. He's about two years older than me, works in some warehouse in the south side of Corneria City," she explained, and Fox nodded, wanting to press on about the earlier hesitation, but decided not to. He knew how uncomfortable he felt when he had to explain about his parents, and didn't wish that on anyone, particularly not Miyu.

"How did you meet Fay?" asked Fox eventually, deciding that now was as good a time to find out as any. Miyu frowned slightly, and bent over to pick up the cap from the floor, flipping it idly as she stared into middle distance, unaware of the slight glimpse she'd given Fox down her shirt and sending him into a new heat wave of red.

"Odd story, really. I can give you the short or long version," she eventually decided, dropping the bottle cap and taking a draught from the bottle itself, licking her tongue around to suck up any of the ultra-sweet juice that had spilled around her lips.

"Long," decided Fox, knowing he hadn't much to do, really, and they could always come back to the story - or he could hear it from Fay. The lynx shuffled in her seat, rearranged her legs for comfort, and took another drink from the bottle.

"'Nother drink, though?" she asked, staring up into the now drained glass container. She left it by her side as Fox tossed another over from the fridge and dropped himself into one of the other chairs. Again, Miyu pierced and opened it with her claw, and took a good swig before starting.

"Thanks," she noted, before replacing it in the holder, and leaning back leisurely. "Well, we met about five, maybe six years ago, I know I was… thirteen then. Amran was only fourteen - our birthdays do that," she added, seeing the conflicting pieces of information crash in the vulpine's head. "Well, we were kind of strapped for cash, and then I saw this trio of rich-looking folk, all white fur and nice clothes, coming close." She nodded as Fox's eyes widened, and let a smile tug at her muzzle.

"You and your brother were going to steal from Fay and her family?" Fox asked incredulously. Miyu was beginning to look more and more like she had been separated from Falco at birth and transformed into a lynx. Miyu nodded, not seeming to express any information in her face.

"Not mugging, pick pocketing obviously. I was going to distract them as Amran pick-pocketed them, but I did the mistake of trying to look like the girl with no friends who was lonely, instead of the injured or lost kid," continued Miyu, and Fox couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the way she listed off the ways she knew how to pickpocket so easily. "And of course, who was Fay? The girl who was being bullied at her school by everyone, and she wanted a friend desperately. Mr and Mrs Spaniel seemed so eager to get their little girl a friend that they offered to take me home for dinner."

"Fay's parents certainly seem like the nice type," Fox commented pleasantly, and was treated by having the bottle cap thrown at him.

"Francis and July Spaniel aren't just 'the good types', golden boy," Miyu said with good humour, though there was a serious note to her voice. "They are absolute angels, saints, whatever you want to call the best of folk," Miyu informed him. "When Amran heard that, he came up and did the 'protective older brother' thing, but they offered to bring him to dinner too. Imagine that! We actually admitted we were trying to pickpocket them, and Fay's mother just said we must be in need of a good feed. We went to their house, and didn't leave for another week." She lay back in the inflatable chair and took another swig of her drink, smiling up at the ceiling, shaking her head slightly.

"I thought I was going to hate Fay - she had a weird name to start with, and when I saw her room, there were these plushies everywhere, it was clean, and looked like the perfect little girl's room," she went on, giving a snort at the end of it. "Turns out, though, she hadn't played with them for years, and when I saw her bed, her pillow was absolutely soaking with tears. She went downstairs to do some sort of chore, and I read her diary. I was crying, it was such a sad thing to read," Fox goggled at this idea of the two girls he'd signed up for his team - it seemed when you pulled the tomboyish, sassy attitudes from around them, they were really mortal.

"So I agreed to play with the dolls and the plushies and the colouring books, and I don't remember ever having so much fun until I was about… fifteen, when Fay and I got into the flight academy," she murmured, taking another drink, and raising an eyebrow at him. Fox nodded back, he remembered the first time he'd hit the simulators with Bill, and didn't remember any time he'd ever wanted to stay on one level for as much as then.

"How did you get in?" asked Fox, though he realised it was probably a stupid question. Bill's mother practically disowned him at twelve, having another ten younger pups to look after, just as she had with his oldest brother and sister. He'd simply got in through turning up with a friend (him) who had the necessary entry, and they got an exam to try.

"Fay's parents said she could change schools at any time, and she chose the flight academy. I turned up along with her, and we were in. By that time, I'd started to rub off a bit on her, which is probably why she went for the most daredevil option she could," explained Miyu, and Fox didn't need to ask what she meant by 'rubbing off on her'. As different as the two girls seemed on first glances, it was obvious they had some sort of close friendship; Fox had no idea it was that deep, though.

"What about you and Falco?" asked Miyu eventually, gesturing with the bottle neck towards Fox. "At the moment, I'm guessing it's almost exactly me and Fay, only with guys instead of girls," she suggested, and Fox shook his head.

"We've known each other for much less time than that," he explained. "Falco was getting his ass handed to him by a bunch of thugs from an old street gang two or so years ago, and Bill and I were on hand with blasters newly licensed. 'Parrently Falco had got the gang some heavy losses against some other gang in a fight. Bad tactics," he added, and Miyu held up a hand as if in class. "Yes, Ms Lynx?" Fox then asked jokingly, and the tufted cat grinned in response, but then her expression hardened.

"Not the Bush Adders gang, was it?" she asked, and Fox slightly recoiled at the name, but shook his head. The aforementioned band of street fighters held some fright for him as well, and often he'd look over his shoulder with weapon drawn on its highest setting if the name ever drifted up in a street.

"Dunno what gang it was, but definitely not them, otherwise we'd be picking feathers up from inside a drain, and they wouldn't be blue," he muttered darkly. "Falco won't tell much about it though, says it's business he doesn't want the world to know. I don't ask myself, the less I have to do with street gangs the better," he growled, eventually prising the top off his own bottle and taking his first drink, feeling the saccharine rush through his veins.

"And he followed you into the Academy?" Miyu asked, and Fox nodded.

"'S why he's not captain of his own team - he feels he owes me one for getting him out of there before…" Fox trailed off them, staring deep into the sloshing liquid at the bottom of his bottle. He looked up and noticed that Miyu's left ear was tilted towards him, and her eyes were much more intent. "He says someone worse was going to turn up, and that if we hadn't pulled him out of there, he'd be worse than dead. He doesn't say much else - it's the only thing that scares the guy," he finished, and he regarded the lynx over the top of his bottle. "As captain's orders, you are not to press for details," he added sternly. "Falco's a fun, silly guy, but he has his limits. Don't push them, nor anyone else's. Rule #1 on the Great Fox."

"Yes, captain," replied Miyu with a wink, but her tone sounded honest enough. The fox grinned, and lifted his bottle into the air. Miyu did the same, and with a few seconds of glugging breaking the silence, they both finished their drinks. At that exact moment though, the door opened, and Falco burst in with a triumphant grin splashed across his beak.

"Oho Fox, guess who's just got the new high score on Midlight Canyon?" he said before holding his personal console in the air with one hand and retracting the other in a fist into his chest triumphantly. "Throw me a Blue Buzz, would you?" he asked, and with a smirk, Fox obliged, the avian catching the bottle and prising the cap off with the tip of his beak.

"Is that what it's called?" asked Miyu, staring at the indecipherable label on her drained bottle. "You'd better give me another too, golden boy," she said much to the surprise of Falco who hadn't seen her yet. He glanced over his shoulder with a quizzical look at Fox, who only shrugged.

"Kitty-lady, outta my seat," he gestured, and with an overly dramatic sigh, Miyu slid out of the inflatable chair and deposited herself on one of the beanbags also around the room that acted as both seating for guests and cushioning when they turned the room's gravity off and did particularly daring wall-to-wall leaps. "You ever played Fission Whiteout before?" he asked Miyu once he was comfortable in his seat, and both males gave each other knowing looks as she shook her head.

"You've got to play it to believe it," said Fox supportively of their joint favourite game, an antigravity racing game in which the lead changed more times in a single race between them than in an entire evening with a guest who wasn't Bill. The three guys held the top titles between them, though Bill often dropped below Fox and Falco due to his military lifestyle giving him less time to play video games like they could.

"Oh, yeah, Fox. The white dog girl was looking for you," Falco then dismissively added, waving a hand as if to say it wasn't much. Fox and Miyu both shot each other a glance then jointly reprimanded Falco.

"It's Fay," they both insisted, as Fox got up from his seat and made towards the door. Falco held up his hands in surrender and sighed.

"Okay, okay, sorry," he grumbled, but gave Fox a brief nod and raised his bottle as he left the room. Miyu, however, was not about to spare Fox from any further embarrassment, and blew him a kiss just before he left the room. The two in the room could feel the heat coming off the vulpine as he left. Falco sank back into his chair and taking a good glug of his bottle, simply pouring it into his beak and letting it run into his throat. When he finished, and gave a glance at Miyu, who had also taken the time to take a good drink of the Blue Buzz, and threw her one of the game controllers on the floor, picking up one himself.

"Screen, console, on," he announced to the ship's systems, and at this, the previously dormant plasma screen sparked to life, showing the loading screen of the game discussed only a few minutes ago.

"What are the controls?" asked Miyu, and Falco leant over, tapping each in turn and telling her what they did. He was careful, of course, to mix up the air brake controls.


	7. Chapter 6 Part 1

-1The surrounding mix of forest and jungle wasn't ideal for detecting anyone sneaking up on you, though perfect for when you were sneaking. Fox smirked a little as he slid from one patch of dense foliage to another quietly, his target not even noticing. He knew he had the advantage here, it could have gone quite wrong at the start for him, but he'd been lucky. He removed his blaster from its' sheath and took careful aim as his target turned away to search a bush opposite him. As it was though, he needed a better angle for a shot, and got to his feet, tilting to one side with the muzzle firmly at her back. And then, the trigger was pulled.

The noises of the various jungle animals and plants were suddenly drowned out by the girl's in-suit klaxon sounding, and a bright red flashing light told Fox he'd won that match. His opponent spun round with a squeal, trying to bring her own weapon to bear, but the controls had been jammed. She was 'dead', Fox had his second point of the day. She scowled, placing her gun in her hip holster but accepted Fox's offered hand graciously.

"Wrong bush," Fox said gleefully, still on somewhat of a smug high after that shot. Fay pushed a blue bang that had fallen into her eyes away and smiled in response, able to take it with good humour.

"I guess we're even then?" she asked, referring to the combat practice they had been doing for the better part of the day on a secluded corner of the Fortunan woodland area. Both had been equipped with modified blasters which only used infra-red beams that connected with a special suit both furs wore to detect when they had received a glancing laser blast, or like Fay had just received, a shot that would have been lethal or crippling had it been a real blaster.

"Yep. D'you want a final round, or happy like it is?" Fox asked, holstering his own weapon and looping his thumbs into loops that also held his suit's belt. He honestly hated these sorts of suits - they were hot, uncomfortable and heavy. He would be glad to be able to take a short rest from being in it should Fay want it. To his relief, she nodded.

"Lets'," she suggested. "We need some dinner anyway," she added as both of them began to walk towards where they had set up base camp. At the mention of the 'd' word, Fox's belly gave a loud rumble, and he was forced to concede that it was a very good idea. Given the position on the planet they had both landed, the planetary time was slightly later than both were used to taking their evening meal - Sol was just about to set in the sky, and already some of the clouds had turned pink and red. That didn't stop Fay though, as soon as they both entered the half-clearing that was their temporary camp, the white canine was already firing up the hot plate and rifling through the various cans of tinned food, picking two and dropping them into a pot of water she'd set to boil.

"So what's the poison tonight?" asked Fox, now thankfully removing the green and brown practice suit, revealing a red T-shirt and a pair of green combat trousers with gold-coloured reactive grav strips. These were a replacement for Velcro, whereby the strips would form their own gravity field based on the mass of an object close by, sticking the object to the side of the trousers. Fay looked up at him and smiled with acceptance at the joke.

"Buru Bird," she explained, tossing one of the empty tins over to the vulpine, who caught it and examined the picture of the medium-sized wild fowl that was often a regular meal in the Lylat System. It wasn't eaten when Falco was around, out of consideration, but it was one of Fox's favourite meals, and he retracted the earlier statement about it being a 'poison'.

"It's just what I'm used to asking the guys," he explained with a tinge of red coming to his cheeks. Fay just shrugged, prodding the boiling tins with a fork so they bobbed and turned around, making sure the meat within would be tossed well and good to eat.

"It's no problem, I'll just eat it all," she said coolly, giving the second tin a nudge closer to her than Fox, and smirked over her shoulder, probably expecting a crestfallen look. What she got instead though, was nearly seventy-five kilograms of russet-gold Fox tackling her away from the food. "Ah!" she squealed as she was knocked down, her arms pinned to the ground by Fox.

"So, do you still feel you can eat it all?" he asked with a leer, grinning right before her eyes. "Or am I going to have to count it all as stuffing?" he added, enhancing his meaning by giving Fay a little lick on the cheek, at which the dog gave a little yip of surprise.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Fox McCloud?" she asked, replying with a lick of her own to Fox's furry cheek. That was enough to get Fox off her, as he got back up to his knees, releasing his crewmate and letting her sit up again, both grinning stupidly at each other and blushing just a little. "Can you watch the food while I get out of this?" she asked, turning away and beginning to fumble with the zipper on the front.

"Sure thing," Fox obliged, picking up the fork and chasing the two cans around the bottom of the bubbling water. After a few seconds, Fay was kneeling next to him, watching his treatment of their evening meal. Like him, she was wearing a pair of combat trousers, pink with yellow grav-strips along the sides. But rather than a T-shirt, she had simply taken a pink bikini top which was distracting for him, though he had to admit it had been a good plan - the atmosphere of the woodland was hot and humid, and his shirt was sticking to his fur with the sweat.

"Here, I'll get them out," Fay offered, taking the fork from Fox's hand and looping the prongs around the ring pulls on the boiled cans. She flipped the first, followed by the second out, Fox caught them both and placed them on the ground quickly, wincing at the heat of the metal on wincing at the hot metal on his bare furred hands - neither had opted to bring gloves along from their ships. Both canines cleared away the cooking equipment as the tins cooled down, and soon they were eagerly sitting opposite each other, spoon and fork in each hand, and a tin with the top peeled back steaming in front of them.

"Not like my mother does, but the smell's as good," Fay commented, inhaling a deep breath of the delicious meat. Fox crooked a small smile at that, though the words were uncomfortably familiar - his own mother's cooking had also been incredible, her pies would send half the cubs in the street running to their house to try and get a bit of the food whenever Vixy called her son in for dinner. Fay seemed to notice the vulpine's crestfallen look and blushed, realised she'd hit a sensitive spot.

"Don't bother yourself with it too much," insisted her captain, waving his fork in dismissal. It stung him, but not too hard that he couldn't explain it to someone he trusted. He would be lying if he said he wasn't a little jealous of Fay for having a pair of alive, good and kind parents - making her the only one on the team - but he wasn't about to be overly reclusive when it came to parentage. His parents did plenty of things that were worth speaking about, and some painful experience had taught him who he could talk to, and Fay fit the criteria fine. The dog didn't reply at first, but that was mostly due to the amount of food in her mouth. She gave a large gulp down, wiped her mouth with her arm and nodded.

"Do you mind if I ask you something about you?" she then asked, leaving her cutlery in her not-finished tin. Fox wondered if the chat he'd had with Miyu last night had been relayed to Fay, but decided that it was a fair thing to consider. Knowing each other well was part of keeping a good team together, and if anything, he'd get the chance to ask a few questions about her.

"Sure thing," McCloud agreed, taking another bite of the quick cooking, but enjoying the taste anyway. He arranged his legs from the cross-legged position to something a bit more comfortable, and rested against a pack on the ground. Fay also did the same, tucking her legs in tightly though and resting her arms around them until she needed another bite.

"Why do you hide away from the spotlight so much when you're on Corneria?" she eventually asked, and Fox blinked. He'd been expecting something along the lines of questions about his family, but it seemed that Fay had kept tabs on him since he had arisen to 'stardom' in Corneria. Maybe earlier - she'd only been two years younger than him at the Academy, and it had seemed several of her friends knew who he was.

"I don't know…" Fox murmured, scratching behind his ear. "I mean, Falco and Peppy relish the attention and publicity; Slippy's just shy generally…"

"You're a little shy too," pointed out Fay, and as if to emphasise that, Fox's ears went a little red.

"Yeah… but only with people I'm unfamiliar with but would like to know better," he admitted. "I can be quite firm and resolute with unknowns I'm not interested in." Fay nodded in time with this, taking a little bite of her Buru Bird and her look told him essentially to 'carry on and answer the question'. After taking another gulp of the food, Fox obliged, choosing his words carefully. "I think when I became a mercenary and went off to fight Andross, I didn't have any real reason except revenge for my father. When I saw what he was doing to the other planets I justified what I was doing as something good for the whole system. That sort of repeated, and eventually I began to believe it a little myself. But I never really wanted so much publicity; I'm not my dad, and I don't want people believing that."

Fay stared for a short moment at Fox, her mind whirling a little. She'd often wondered exactly why Fox had attained such popularity, or how he'd even managed to get it into his head that he could save a system. Somehow, it took the polish off his gleaming appearance, that the 'saving the galaxy' was just a cover-up, but it also seemed to make him a really honest person in her eyes.

"Why do you ask?" Fox then asked, the stunned canine, and it was Fay's turn to blush a little. She gulped a little more of her food down to put off the answer as long as possible, but never got the chance to reply anyway. As soon as she put her can down, a hail of light bolts streaked out of the trees to the left, hailing down on the campsite, and Fox and Fay were only a little too late to get out of the way. Both rolled instinctively into their nearby tents, which became the centre of the shooter's attention as scorch marks began appearing in the upper canvas of both canids' tents. That, however, was short matter to both of them compared to the numerous instances of scorched fur and seared skin that peppered their bodies. Both were doing their best to withstand the pain, but the wincing was straining Fox's face, and tears were accumulating in Fay's eyes as any burnt part that touched anything sent a jolt of pain through her body.

"_What happened?"_ wondered Fox through gritted teeth, reaching to the edge of his tent for where he left his comm.-link, real blaster and medical supplies, only to find that, confusingly, they weren't there. It became apparent when he looked up and around that he wasn't exactly in his own tent - the quickly blackening surfaces of the canvas weren't his trademark green, but pink; and he never, ever folded his clothes like the nicely ordered gear at the foot of a white and blue sleeping bag. However, he caught sight of a green box with a white cross on the top beside the clothes, and near it a communications headset and - of all joys - a standard-issue blaster for his crew; all of which ended up clipped to his belt, placed around his ears or slotted into a holster..

"_I hope Fay has better luck in my tent,"_ though Fox, going a little red around the ears as he remembered his slightly disorganised unpacking system, and also the fact that his blaster was kept at the very bottom of his sleeping bag. Noticing that some of the scorch marks in the canvas were falling in and smouldering, he knew he had to get out soon. He had a long knife at his belt, something Falco insisted he take on a jungle trip, and the fox was going to have to thank the avian for the suggestion. Knowing he'd have to pay at some point for the expenses caused to his team-mate's sleeping arrangement, he tugged the knife out of his belt and slashed it through the pink canvas at the edge that faced the jungle growth. He reflected though, as the roof began to catch alight, perhaps he didn't have to say anything to her at all.

"Fay?" he asked in trepidation through the vox, but nothing answered. The golden vulpine slipped through the relatively tangled undergrowth, wincing whenever a vine or thorn hit one of his burns, towards the now smoking form of his once proud green tent. He had holstered Fay's blaster, seeing no reason to really use it at the moment, and simply hacked at any particularly nasty-looking weeds with his machete. Eventually, he slid through to the back of his own tent as it too caught fire, and ran a slice across the back of it. A squeak from inside told him that Fay was indeed in there, and to his relief, alive.

"Fox!" she exclaimed, as she saw who it was, lowering what Fox recognised as his own weapon. Deciding not to ask for the moment how she'd got the weapon out, or more to the point, how she'd located it; he took her outstretched arm and tugged her out of the tent as the top collapsed from the fire. Both mercenaries yelped out loud as the burns on their arms brushed against the fur of the other, and the tug of Fox's brought them both tumbling into the undergrowth, crying out at the painful touches of the vines and creepers that arrayed the jungle. When both had opened their eyes again, their eyes and jaws contracted with the effort of holding back some quite extreme pain, they suddenly realised that Fay was lying on top of Fox, both of them covered by a large fern that they'd obviously fallen through.

"Sorry," they both whispered to each other, and they both blushed for a moment, and began to scramble up, but Fay let herself back down and Fox pulled her closer to him as they heard voices coming from the direction of their ruined campsite. The large fern was probably enough to cover them, but their fur was covered in burns, and encased in dirt and plant bits they'd fallen through, so Fox reasoned they stood a chance at not being discovered unless someone looked carefully. In case that happened, though, they exchanged weapons, and turned the safety switches off.

"Some good shooting there, Sicarus," said a smooth, sickly honey-edged voice, and Fox felt Fay's free hand tighten a little around his wrist. Both canine and fox held their breath as they remembered Cyrene, and had no desire to meet her face-to-face. The sound of crunching, burnt grass echoed through the trees surrounding the clearing and the fern covering them - neither could mistake the double-sound of a pair of high-heels as it made its' way through the remains of their tents.

"Thank you, Miss," replied an odd-sounded voice, the accent of which neither mercenary could identify. Fox would have chanced a peek at this point, but Fay was still lying on top of him, and she couldn't move much for fear of moving the fern that covered them.

"Well, I say good…" the swan female's voice replied lazily. "But I see no scorched fur, no bodies, no bones. Do you really think McCloud and his bitch would just disappear in flames like that?" she asked, and the sound of snapping fingers echoed into the ears of both mercenaries - not that they heeded it. Both were restraining themselves from leaping up and ripping the swan's head off such was Cyrene's choice of language.

"N…no, Captain Swan," replied the voice of the shooter, and there was a horrible silence, where even the forest seemed to hold its' breath in anticipation as Cyrene considered the oddly-voiced shooter. Fox also seemed to notice, as the silence dragged on, that Fay's loose hold around his arm seemed to intensify, and the rest of her body pressed itself closer to him.

"Are you allright?" whispered Fox in as low a voice as he could, nosing underneath one of her large, floppy ears to ask the white canine. Fay nodded slowly above him, but the vulpine could somewhat guess that wasn't entirely the case. A cracking shot that echoed through the clearing confirmed that as despite the burns, Fay squeaked softly and pulled herself closer to Fox. The fox winced at the touches of the sore parts of his fur, but carefully enclosed the arm not holding his pistol around Fay, ignoring the slight heat rising in his cheeks.

There was a long silence after the shot, before the sickly sweet voice of Cyrene Swan reached them again, sounding happier than it had been before. Fox wondered for a moment whether she'd shot the person who'd tried to kill him and Fay, until he heard the odd voice sobbing throughout Cyrene's words.

"Well, Ramón, you're right. They couldn't just vanish into nothing - they vanished into the jungle. And you're going to get them, or the rest of you will end up like your hand," the female avian said smoothly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. "I'll set up a communications jammer, so they can't relay to their ship. I expect their heads within at least a week. No risks of prisoners this time."

"Yes… Ma'am…" whimpered 'Ramón' , obviously not liking the idea at all. Fox pulled Fay in closer to her as steps seemed to come closer to their fern, but they only passed their hiding spot quickly, marching through the jungle accompanied by a few heavier footsteps of the guards. When all the noises but the continued whimpering of the sniper had faded away, the two members of Star Fox released each other, Fay turning around to look towards their campsite with Fox peering over her shoulder when he was up as well, both holding back the instinctive responses to the burns.

Kneeling in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by a group of pirates, was a duck who was clutching the stump of a hand, a rifle lying on the ground beside him as his men, possibly his subordinates, all remained quiet, giving each other worried glances. It was clear that none of them knew exactly what they could do at the moment, except one who took a medical kit out and began wrapping up the mess of his superior's hand.

"That bitch…" whispered Fay as the duck moved a little, and it was clear that the bandages, if at least keeping it together, weren't doing anything to stop the bleeding. The avian's blood had already turned the white bandages a deep crimson, and his medic was stooping to place fresh bandages on.

"Ramón, mate, I should have listened to you," the medic admitted, watching his latest efforts only go slightly pink. "You were right - she's not the sort of person we wanted to work for," the beagle said, helping the duck to his feet. Ramón, however, shook his head, and replied in his odd, half-nasal, half lisping voice..

"No - it was me. I was so sure I could get her into bed, and look what's happened," he admitted, holding his ruined arm up. "I'm sorry, guys," he added, looking around his troops. However, rather than sympathetic looks, all he was getting were stares of resentment. Fox and Fay both drew in a bit of breath, and crouched down amongst the flora as one of the duck's henchmen landed a punch squarely in his stomach, sending the flat-footed avian collapsing backwards, winded. Three other pirates, including the medic, were treated in a similar way, all four ending up clutching their stomachs on the ground, groaning with pain.

"Yeah, I see what's 'appened," spat a newt as he approached the mallard. "An' I see what's goin' to 'appen. You're goin' to tell us all this was a big mistake, an' we should leave 'ere and now, aren't you?" Weakly, the green-headed avian nodded. "Yeah, well guess what, Cruz - some of us think this is the best damn thing you've ever done for us - we knew you wanted out, we didn't. An' we're goin' to get McCloud an' his bitch, an' we'll save Captain Swan the problem of dealin' with you and your mates," he added, and amidst guffaws from the other cronies, he withdrew a pistol, pointing it straight above the duck's beak.

He never got the chance to pull the trigger - before he did, a pair of angry mercenaries, caked with burns, dirt and various bits of moss and plant, burst from the undergrowth, shots lancing from their blasters at the standing pirates, and the fox with a vicious knife held backwards in his right hand. The newt seemed to be especially alert, though, as he slipped out of the firing range immediately, and began launching bolts of light at the mercs as he backed away towards the jungle himself. The more switched on of his cronies were clever enough to run away after their ringleader, but the dimmer were fumbling in their belts for their weapons. Unfortunately, Fay had taken down a fair number with her blaster, as had Fox with his own gun before they had got their own weapons out - and by that time, Fox was on close combat terms with his knife.


	8. Chapter 6 Part 2

_This is just a re-fix of the chapter, feedback would be appreciated on what you thought of the changes._

* * *

Ramón Sicarus was beyond saving by the time his medic got to him, the duck had been trampled on by many of the ruffians as they fled Fox and Fay, and the blood loss from his ruined hand had been far too serious for anyone to staunch effectively - the male beagle had eventually put the avian out of his misery with a shot to the back of the neck. He, Fox and the second of the duck's men - a mauve-skinned porcupine that again, Fox recognised from one of the upper years in the Academy, who had also been rejected by the Cornerian Navy for the flying seat - all gave him a makeshift semi-burial, semi-cremation in the ruins of the two mercenaries' camp, with Fay and the third victim of the rebellion, a female beagle who greatly resembled the medic.

"We'll get them for you, mate," growled the two brown dogs one after another as they turned from the grave, marching off with their weapons drawn to stand before Fox and Fay. Fox had been already talking animatedly with Darren, the porcupine, and he cleared his throat to introduce the two canines.

"These are Benji and Belinda," he said, the girl rolling her eyes at the sound of her name, and the male seemed to sympathise with it.

"We're Ben and Linda," he growled, though not particularly threatening. He then smiled, offering a brown-furred hand to Fox, who graciously accepted it. "I know who you are, Mr McCloud," he said, smiling a little more to Fay. "And you must be Miss Spaniel - though truth be told, Cyrene didn't refer to you as that in the briefing room."

"Unsurprising," replied Fay, rolling her eyes and sharing a knowing glance with Fox. She accepted an offered hand and shook it politely, before doing the same to Linda. "Are you Ben's brother?" she asked cautiously - Fox had been wanting to ask the same question given the two dogs' extremely similar looks. Linda smiled and nodded, reaching over to ruffle Ben's head-fur.

"Yup, this puppy here's my little brother," she said with a sultry smile at Fox as Ben pushed her away, grinning a little, and then her face turned serious. "He followed me out when I got kicked out of the Cornerian EAF," she explained, and both mercenaries' jaws dropped open. The EAF - Elite Attack Force - was a splinter force of the Cornerian army who specialised in boarding actions against other space vessels - Fox cast his mind back to his and Falco's hastily assembled boarding action against Cyrene's main ship, and knew that next to what Linda and Ben had probably been a part of, it was a horrible slapdash piece of tactic.

"Why did they kick you out?" asked Fox, beginning to walk towards the ruins of his and Fay's tents, indicating that the others should fall in behind him and help pick up the bits of detritus. As he scoured the charred remains of his tent, he managed to pick up a few odds and ends that he thought may be useful as he listened to Linda's tale; Ben seemed happy to stay quiet and let his sister talk.

"Off- and on-duty brawling," was the eventual explanation after a couple of long and convulted explanations of how she'd tried to protect herself from some of her squad mates' advances on her using various heavy bits of metal, and that her commanding officers had seen it as unprovoked attacks. Fox nodded grimly, glancing over at Fay and remembering the theme of the story well, females being picked on and not given their dues for their positive points aside from their body shape.

After a few more minutes of riffling about in the still-smoking remains of the charred tents, it was decided that there was little that was genuinely salvageable or useable aside from Fay's machete, both hers' and Fox's knives, a few cooking utensils and a torch. All these were pocketed or holstered on Fox and Fay's grav-strips, as Darren, Linda and Ben all had their own personal equipment, some of it pretty poor quality, but as Fox pointed out, in the middle of this jungle planet, it didn't really matter much as long as they were kept alive.

After they had all collected the equipment, the five of them made their way into the jungle-forest together, the three boys taking up the front and the two girls watching the rear of the party - though after the first few minutes, where it became apparent that there was nothing that really was choosing to attack them of its' own free will, it seemed to simply morph into conversations between the groups. While Fay and Linda were chatting away at the back, Fox was questioning Darren and Ben for information on Cyrene's operations.

"She's got a huge whole fleet behind her," Darren was grumbling, spreading his arms wide to quantify exactly how huge the fleet was. That ship you took down was one of the big ones, but she's got five of them - and an even bigger one, a juggernaut." the colour faded a little from Fox's fur as he heard the last word - the juggernauts weren't usually used at all if could be helped, as the entire crew needed to be either very strong-stomached or cold-hearted as they saw what the salvoes their ship could unleash - one minute of solid firing would be enough to reduce one of the biggest asteroids in Meteos to gravel

"What's she trying to do with it?" asked Fox. "I mean, it's all right having the ships and the like, but the crewmen I've met on her ships aren't exactly tough nuts," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. Ben simply shrugged it off.

"We dunno - something big, probably just intimidation. I saw your face when I mentioned the J-word, and no doubt anybody else would end up looking like that too, including planetary governors," added Ben, and Fox flushed a little at having given away some of his fear.

"Do you really think she could raise a full crew to hold up a juggernaut?" asked Fox, looking back in the rough direction of the clearing. "I mean, she's not really conservative with her recruits…" he trailed off though, as Ben and Darren gave him 'oh come on, it's not that hard is it?' looks, and he sighed. "She can't… if she runs the rest of her fleet," he realised. "If she gets rid of everyone who might oppose her," he gestured towards the porcupine and dog. "She can patch the remnants together to have a juggernaut crew who all have unflinching loyalty to her." Ben nodded gravely, though Darren gave a little grin and clapped Fox on the back.

"Guess it's not completely true that you've got no brains and rely on your frog buddy to get all the information and answers for you," he joked, and Fox and Ben gave a snort at that. Ben then gave a look over his shoulder at where Fay and his sister were talking, and leant over to whisper to Fox.

"So… you and Fay… is there anything going on?" Though inept with relationships, Fox knew this was a potential rock-and-a-hard-place scenario for him, because if he said no (which wasn't completely the truth), Ben would be trying to get Fay's attention, which he wasn't sure if she wanted or not; and if he said yes (which wasn't the complete truth either), either of the two guys with him would start asking him potentially embarrassing and un-answerable questions. In the end, he decided to tell them the complete and utter truth.

"I've no idea," he said quietly back to Ben, and as the beagle looked at him confusedly, McCloud elaborated. "Well, she's really nice and cute and all, and I like to spend time with her, but we've never really done anything together." Ben nodded, potentially in understanding, though most likely simply to let the subject drop. Unfortunately, this wasn't technically the case, as he didn't ask any more about Fay.

"What happened with you and Cyrene Swan?" he asked, no longer whispering, and the other three furs in proximity looked round in interest. Fox knew it was only a matter of time before anyone other than Falco, Slippy or even Bill or Katt asked about the full story of him and Cyrene.

"Her mother knew my father in the Academy," said Fox, which was the understatement of the century. "And she wanted to carry on this 'tradition'." At this the other four gave little 'ah' noises of understanding, and Fay blushed a fine rose colour. "I wasn't really sure about this, and kept telling her I didn't want her with me, either as a ship mate or as a…"

"Bed mate?" offered Linda, and the two boys started sniggering as Fox went the same colour as Fay.

"Yes…" murmured Fox. "And she kinda… took offence at that. Started thinking up excuses why I didn't like her, and decided that the only thing I was ever really in love with was an Arwing. Or Falco for that matter," he added with rolled eyes and snorts of laughter from the others. "I guess that's why she was so angry to see me with two nice girls," he finished, and despite the idiot grins on Darren and Ben's faces, they were both nodding along, their eyes seeming to have taken in all the detail.

"We never saw her in one of her fouler moods, but Ramón was witness to one, just after she found out that Miss Spaniel was on your team as well as Miss Lynx," Ben mentioned, and Fay flushed a little more, but tilted her head in interest.

"What happened exactly?" Linda, Ben and Darren gave each other uneasy looks, before Linda cleared her throat and told them - though perhaps Falco or Miyu might have heard something like that in the back alleys they'd visited in their time, Fox and Fay had never heard such language, and were left stunned for a moment at the idea that anyone could not only say such things about the pair of them, and as soon as it all sank in, their blushes returned full force.

"Well, we never thought it was the case," said Darren, noting the expression on the two canids' faces with some shock. Fox gave a lick round his muzzle and nodded, mouthing a dry 'thank you', such was the shock he seemed to have lost a fair portion of his speaking ability. When this was found to be the case, Linda decided to take over, and directed them along the route Fox had managed to map out to where their ships were using scraps of maps from within his pockets. Fay had attached the comm.-link and was desperately trying to contact the Great Fox, but nothing was coming out save for white noise.

"So what's going to happen to the lot of us when we get to your ships?" asked Linda suddenly, and Fox and Fay looked at each other in shock, mentally slapping themselves as they realised that they'd forgotten to consider getting another three pilots off the planet.

"We're working on it," lied Fay, but the deceit was written all over her face, and the two beagles and the porcupine shared uneasy glances.

"We'll sort something out," promised Fox, who'd regained his tongue, and letting Linda continue on with the map reading, he began to wonder exactly what was the maximum capacity of an Arwing cargo hold.

* * *

Night fell after about an hour or two of walking, and the five furs had sorted themselves out with a temporary rest point, having erected a couple of hammocks made of strips of thick bark and banana leaves between trees, using knives sticking out of the branches above them to detract various forest nasties from crawling down and getting into their beds with them - however they'd agreed to set a guard up throughout the night to keep an extra watch out - and apart from Linda having to move to crush a scorpion working its' way up the tree at the foot of Darren's hammock, nobody had yet had to deal with anything serious, only a couple of bugs and moths finding their ways into the fur and hair of Linda, Ben, Fay and Fox (Darren ended up kebab-ing anything that tried to fly into his back, and he was sleeping on his front). This was until Fox's watch, when he noticed something moving in the trees above the tree where both Fay and Linda had tied their hammocks.

"Okay… stay calm…" whispered the fox as he approached the hammock, looking up towards the tree and shining his torch there to see nothing. Not trusting that it was safe just yet, he picked up a stick from the ground and prodded the tree lightly with it. Not much, just a light, inquisitive poke. Unfortunately, the thing in the tree didn't take kindly to light, inquisitive pokes, and Fox found himself clouted away by some long appendage that whacked him straight across the muzzle, causing him to lose his balance and fall straight to the ground, his torch and stick skittering away from him and the light going out of the torch.

Instinctively, Fox's blaster was in his hand, aiming directly at the tree but not firing just yet. He could see the torchlight shining across the jungle floor, but to pick it up meant turning away potentially from his assailant. Instead, he decided to take the most natural course of action.

"Wake up!" he yelled, firing a single blast into the tree and getting paid back for his efforts as a tree branch was snapped off and hurled at him. The vulpine leapt and rolled to the ground to avoid whatever it was that was coming out of the tree, and to his relief, Ben was up and was pointing a torch at something swinging its' way down from the tree.

Fox hadn't taken biology at all during his educational years, so was completely blank as to what the beast he and the other male canine was, but a military-esque training told him that whatever came at you looking like it was with an intent to kill probably did have an intent to kill. In this case, the intending killer was some sort of enormous insect, green in hue though that could have been attributed mostly to its' matted body hair that was overgrown with plant life. It scuttled on four legs, the first four in fact, the back two arching over like a pair of cannons on a walker tank, and the two antennae swinging violently. It looked like it was one of the antennae that had clouted Fox, though the insect was using both those and the legs to grab nearby objects and toss them at the awake soldiers. Darren was up as well, the remnants of his torn hammock impaled on his rearward spines, and was kneeling down, a blaster in his hand having practically torn apart his pack to get it. It seemed like Fox, who slept with his blaster on safety mode in the branches above, was justifying his improved marks over his friend in combat readiness.

"Where's Fay?" asked Ben as he ducked his own backpack, which had been scooped up and hurled at him by the greenish beast, whistled right by his left ear. He and Fox replied with a volley of shots, but such was the greenery around the jungle-dweller that the shots did no more than scorch the numerous vines around the monster's body, before Fox realised he didn't know how to answer that.

"Hang on, I'll find out," he barked at the beagle, and instantly rolled away, getting into a position to circle it, not noticing the slightly shocked look that Ben gave him. Unfortunately, circling the monster was harder than it looked, considering it was still ideally throwing things at him as opposed to the others who were up.

"Go get her!" yelled a voice that Fox recognised as Linda's, and a split-second afterwards, the female dog was on top of the insectoid, a glint of a combat knife in her hand visible for only a second before it was shoved inside the back of the bug. Fox tried to analyse Linda's words but found his mind somewhat addled when the insect of sorts sent up a hideous screeching, clicking noise . He bit his lower lip, trying to blot out the sound as opposed to clutching his hands over his ears. Fox then turned his head to the right a little and froze. There was a second one.

This one was slightly smaller than the one currently attacking, and its' covered hide had splashes of colour mixed within. Fox guessed it was probably a male when he looked back on the situation in later days, but at that moment there was a thought that was a little more pressing on his mind. The fact that Fay was still in her hammock, and had one of the creature's antennae wrapped around her throat.

Instantly, Fox's more irrational mind, the one that considered the male insect the main foe in his world, took over and he sprinted towards Fay's hammock, his blaster roaring away at full automatic and his finger still on the trigger even after the plasma cell had completely run down and ejected itself to avoid catastrophic burnout. Fox had pulled his combat blade out of his belt, and was holding it backwards in his left hand as he leapt, propelling himself towards the monster.

"Get off!" he growled angrily into the back of the insect's head as he repeated Linda's movements in plunging the knife into the creature's back, just behind its' head (or at least what he assumed must be the head). He was prepared for the screech this time, folding his ears closer to his head to blot out the sound. What was new, though, was the rather unattractive blue tinted thick mucus that came bubbling up around the knife. Fox instantly scrambled backwards as he saw the knife blade begin to smoke as it was eased upwards and out of the monster's body by the blue ooze. If something was reacting with that strength on steel, he hated to think what it would do to fur and flesh.

His aim in total had only half worked. The insect was almost certainly more concerned with its' neck wound than the girl it was choking, and it let her go - only it let go of her by flinging her out of the hammock and across the ground. Fox scrambled off the hammock and across the jungle floor to where Fay was, the light from both the fight with the female insect and the small chinks of moonlight showing that she was still alive; gasping for air with a dark ring around her throat, the burn marks from the day before and numerous other cuts still apparent; but she was still very much alive. The pilot turned again to see the insect had collapsed to the ground, taking the spaniel's hammock with it as it hit the ground. The blaster shots and yells from the other side of the tree line showed that Linda's stabbing probably hadn't had much effect, and for that matter neither had Fox's.

"Stay here," said Fox, resting his hand on Fay's shoulder for a second as she rubbed her sore neck, still trying to get her breath back. Now thinking a little straighter, Fox raised his blaster from where it had never left his right hand and slotted in a new battery pack. Even in the dim light, he could tell when it was ready with the presence of a trio of lights flashing up the side of the barrel. As soon as that was done, the image of the approaching (though limping somewhat) insect was shot into focus as the mercenary unleashed a barrage of shots at the insect, the orange-red light throwing shadows haphazardly around the area but mostly sending flashes out as they impacted against the face of the bug.

"Go for its' eyes with something solid!" the fox heard the voice of Darren yell over a third unearthly scream that Fox guessed was the female insect getting Darren's usually painful treatment. The porcupine had always believed in the very material, which is why he insisted on using solid ammunition rather than blasters - a contributor to how he'd been rejected from the Cornerian Navy.

"I've got it!" yipped Fay as Fox scanned the poorly lit ground for a nearby rock, and he looked up to see a small, dark object whirl past him and clout the insect somewhere in the facial region. Obviously she'd got either a lucky or a well-recognised throw, because for the fourth time that night, a scream rent the air, and as Fox re-started his automatic firing, it was apparent that the eye membrane of the insect was pretty weak, as there was a rupture in the structure and the blue ooze was leaking out. Moving the stream of las-fire into the gap, the insect screamed more, and Fox noticed the blue liquid was not bubbling and searing.

"Get down!" he yelled, grabbing Fay around the waist and pulling her behind a tree. Just before he successfully hid though, a horrible 'squelch' noise indicated that something about the insect had gone wrong, and Fox felt a slap of something liquid against his shirt. Instantly he began to rip the clothing off, but the boiling liquid had gone through it with minimum of effort, and by the time the shirt was off, it had gone through his fur and was beginning to act on his skin.

The heat had been nasty through the shirt, but as soon as he felt the snapping, searing pain between his shoulder blades, he let out a yell of pain, and his vision began to swim. It vanished after a couple of words from Fay, but they were slow and dizzy to him. The already dark forest began to grow darker, and he felt himself slipping down to the ground. His eyes closed as his head met the ground. Hard.


	9. Chapter 7

Fox woke up with a sore head, though at the very least, it was a dull, throbbing pain as opposed to a sharp searing pain he'd experienced in the forest before, when that insect-like creature's blood had hit him. Almost immediately, he tried to fall back into a quiet sleep, too much had happened in a mind that had been mostly dormant save for a few vague dreams. However, the figure by his bed had other ideas.

"Hey, Foxy-boy's awake!" half-chirped the lynx from the side of his bed, having noticed his shuffling about and fluttering of his eyelids. Fox groaned out loud, and eased open one eye to see a grinning Miyu sitting beside where he was lying, a magazine of sorts rolled up in one of her hands and the other pouring him a glass of water.

"Thanks," he breathed as he took the water. He didn't particularly feel in the mood for too much chatting, though he wanted a few questions answered, also particularly in short syllables and a quiet voice. Ms Lynx wasn't particularly the first on his list of people who could do that in his mind, but at least she seemed to be able to accept that.

"Here, I'll get our medical team," she added, getting up from the chair, magazine still rolled up in her right hand. Fox noticed she had taken the care to roll it up so the advert on the rear page was in view, making him wonder exactly what it was that she needed to hide. The tufted cat didn't give him a chance to ask, as she slipped out of the relatively small room - it certainly wasn't the Great Fox's medical bay, the vulpine noticed, glancing around and noticing first of all that there weren't three beds in the room, only one; and that secondly his series of posters and pictures were placed around the room in their normal places.

"Fox?" came a quiet voice from his door, and he turned to see Fay enter, followed shortly by the team's robot ROB. Fay was wearing her mufti, but with a white band with a red triangle on was wrapped around her left arm. The fox gave a smile, and nodded. The dog's face broke open into a smile and she crossed to the side of his bed, the slow and ponderous metallic form of the robot coming in soon after. Something didn't seem right about his team's assistant, and taking another sip of the water he'd been given by Miyu, he voiced the question.

"Why isn't he making noise?" he asked, gesturing with his nose towards ROB. Usually, Rob could be identified by the light 'clang' his metallic feet made whenever they touched the tread plate of the Great Fox. Slippy had insisted on keeping ROB bipedal as opposed to wheels or tracks as it made the robot feel more of an active member of the team.

"I had Slippy put rubber soles on his feet to keep him quiet." the canine explained, as she reached over and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Fox paused a little, worried as to what exactly the presence of those was for. The spaniel seemed to notice the worry in her captain's face, and gave a little sigh. "I'm changing your sutures and bandages, and though I wash the best I can, I don't think you'd want my fur in your burns," she added with a grin. Fox smiled back, and instinctively ran a hand over his back to where it had been burnt.

"Ow!" he yelped, his body now very much alert as Fay slapped his hand away. The dog gave him a very matronly stare as she took a hold of his wrist - albeit a little more gently than the nurse at Fox's junior school used to - and laid it by his side.

"Don't touch it - I'll let you see a camera scan of it if you absolutely must see it," Fay warned him. "I need you to turn over though," she added, rummaging through a tray left on top of his chest of drawers. Fox obeyed, finding in the process he was still wearing what felt like his old combat trousers from the Fortuna mission, but his shirt had been removed as had his boots, bracers and weapons.

"_Medical Attention to Fox James McCloud at 22:98 CST, carried out by Medical Attendee Valerie Samantha Spaniel with Robotic Attendee ROB-64 is now undergoing. Subject is awake for first time since initial burns received,"_ grated the metallic voice of ROB as whirrs and clicks from the machine's arms indicated that medical implements were replacing the usual hands of the robot. Fox's ears folded in a little at the volume of ROB's monotone, but something made them prick up a little.

"Your name is Valerie?" Fox asked the canine, who had turned a rather tasteful shade of rose. She nodded briefly, before slipping on a medical apron hanging up on his coat rack and kneeling down on the bedside beside him.

"You can call me Dr Spaniel for this," she said smoothly, making a little hand motion over to the robot. She took a small plastic bag with the biohazard symbol of three curved lines making a triangle from the table and let it rest on Fox's bed beside him. The vulpine had undergone enough detail on any of his war wounds to know simply to stay still as the medical attendee did his or her job. However, a few things were still niggling at the back of his mind.

"Are you a certified doctor?" asked Fox, still looking ahead and wincing occasionally as the dog and robot pulled off… something from his back, which felt quite tender.

"I did a specialisation in battle medicine," Fay said carefully before removing another strip from his back. Fox gave a little 'yip' at that one, and took it as a cue to shut up. He was silent as the white canine continued to address his back, until it seemed as though she had finished. Once this was done, ROB retracted one of the scissor attachments on his arms and, with his own hand as Fay sealed and placed the biohazard bag off to one side, placed a little video screen in front of Fox's face as Fay took a little pencil camera and shone it over his back.

"Was that the insect blood?" asked Fox, aghast at what had happened to his back. The fur and skin had been burned away, and some of the muscle that had rested just underneath was also tinted a brighter red colour than he usually remembered seeing it. Fay nodded, removing the camera and screen, and placing a hand on Fox's cheek.

"Yes, it was. I managed to scrape most of it off that night, but there was some that was still left inside your back. It's caused serious damage to your shoulder muscles, a lot of burning. ROB and I purged it all, but the damage is done. You'll have to limit the amount of motion your arms do in future, and certainly no more weightlifting or push-ups for about twenty-five days," she explained, and Fox felt his heart sink a little. However, it didn't last long, as Fay stood up once again and addressed ROB. "Patient has been informed of his symptoms and best way to treat them in the future. Wound is to be re-bound and cleaned," she said in what Fox was considering calling her 'medical voice'.

"_Applying aerosol-based Bromine cleaning agent," _ROB 'said' in his monotone, and this time, Fox again caught the important terms in the phrase a little too late to take evasive movements as a spray of bright orange chemical landed on his back, and immediately he began howling in pain.

"Oh, frag! That burns!" yelped the vulpine even as 'Dr Spaniel' held his shoulders down to try and stop his wriggling about. Fay was saying something, potentially of importance, but Fox wasn't really able to listen. Eventually after a few moments, ROB had finished applying new bandages and sutures, and the two medical attendees announced the medical finished over Fox's yelling, Fay removed her white armlet and very gently slipped her hand into Fox's, letting him squeeze it.

"Shhh… it's just a bit of Bromine," whispered the dog into the fox's ear. "Take a few deep breaths," she added, giving Fox a reassuring squeeze. Fox did as he was told once the information registered, and with each breath, the pain seemed to dull from burning to simply a warm prickling.

"Oh, damn… but it burnt," whimpered the russet-gold fox, still not opting to remove his fingers from around Fay's. It didn't seem as though 'Valerie' had a problem with it, and after waving ROB out of the room, she slid more onto the bed beside Fox, pulling him to a kneeling position.

"As much as that insect matter did?" the white dog asked, running a hand through her blue hair - fresh dye, Fox guessed - and then through his rather unkempt Mohawk. Fox tried to think back to that night, and remembering that he passed out from the pain, he had to flush a bit and shake his head. Fay giggled and pushed his chest lightly, just as the door opened once again. Fox looked around to see both Falco and Miyu entering, a smirk on both of their faces.

"Hey dude, I thought it was Bill who had the thing for nurses," Falco chirped with a crease at the edges of his beak. Fox tried to untwine his fingers from Fay's, and cover it up, but Miyu got in with a comeback quicker, punching the falcon lightly in the shoulder.

"Yo, bluebird - he saved her from getting the burns. He deserves at least a bit of gratitude," Miyu said, and crossed to the bed as Fay shuffled over a little bit to let her friend sit on the edge of the bed and plant a kiss on the startled vulpine's muzzle. "Thanks for taking it for my friend - it means a lot that you care enough," she said, looking over his shoulder with a smirk at Falco. As much as it was nice, this advance by Miyu, Fox was getting a bit freaked out.

"No problem," Fox murmured, shuffling away from the two girls slightly. Falco seemed to be enjoying watching Fox go a little red, and had seated himself in the same seat both Fox and Fay had collapsed into a week ago, legs crossed and a smile on his beak.

"Happy where you are?" Falco asked, placing both his hands behind his head and leering somewhat at his captain. Both Fay and Miyu had arranged themselves so they were flanking him, having noticed he'd tried to get away from them, the two had almost rearranged themselves to entrap their captain.

"Yeah, jealous?" Fox eventually asked, plucking up a bit of courage to send a fight-back at his wingman. Falco let his eyes flick back and forth for a few moments before sniggering. Fay had slid her hands down to hold Fox's as Miyu rested both hers and her chin on McCloud's shoulder.

"Nah. I can get any girl I want if I keep giving more interviews than the Copperhead boys," Falco boasted, puffing his chest out within his dark green tank top a little. He let a satisfied look cross over his face for a moment or two before perking up and adding another low blow. "And my girls wouldn't have anything on." This was followed up by his beak opening as far as possible and his tongue waggling mockingly at the furre who essentially wrote his paycheques. Falco closed his eyes and smiled as widely as he could, murmuring sleepily. "Mmm… _las ragazzas…_"

"Is he always this irritating, or does he have an offswitch?" Miyu asked Fox quietly, her words slipping into his ear from where she was, on his shoulder. Fox smiled gently, shaking his head and sighing.

"If he does, I think I might be better off not knowing where it is," he replied, his words being met with a spurt of giggling from Fay and a snort from Miyu. The fox's green eyes slid across from the tan brown, black spotted and white chested lynx on his right to the white dog on his left, and he let himself smile a little more. Falco was still off in his daydream as Fay turned questioningly to him.

"You seem a little more relaxed than ever before," she commented, playing with some of the artistic piercing in one of her ears - a little five pointed star with a sliver of blue glass in the centre. "Why's that?" Fox mulled the question in his mind over, and then laid back against his bedrest, hands behind his head in much the same way as Falco was in the chair, mumbling something to his invisible girlfriends.

"I think it's because you're not so alien to me anymore," Fox eventually said, prompting raised eyebrows from both girls. "When I first met you, the fact that you were both really pretty, sexy girls was the thing that scared me a little. It's something I've always been a little wary of, my father taught me to be careful of girls whose only redeeming property is their looks. But now I know you're both clever, funny, caring and skilful as well as good-looking, I've nothing to be afraid of. I can trust you both," he added, and both canine and feline glanced at each other, a tinge of red in Fay's cheeks and a grin pulling at Miyu's muzzle.

There was a very long silence after both girls turned to face Fox, and then laid down on the bed beside him on either side, respective positive expressions on both of their faces. There was a moment or two of Fox simply flicking between the two of them before he suddenly realised something. He glanced over at Falco, who was still asleep, then at the door, which had closed. He sat up, turning back to the two now confused looking pilots.

"Listen… Fay, Miyu…" he began hesitantly, his streak that made him a little more embarrassed resurfacing as he blushed a little. The pain in his back was still prickling somewhat, but he had other things to concentrate on. "I… I mean what I said just then, it's not empty words. But I… I don't know if I can get into a relationship," he added, licking his lips as if to try and get the words out a little easier.

"With one of us, or both of us?" asked Fay, having also sat up, pulling her legs close to her body and wrapping her arms around them. Fox rubbed the back of his head, looking down at the crumpled bed sheet.

"With either of you," he admitted. Fay and Miyu glanced at each other, and leant in close to one another, whispering to each other. Soon, both of them looked up and nodded.

"Sure, Foxy," Miyu said with a nod. "If you want to give it time, it's fine. If you're worried about hurting the other's feelings by only being with one of us, we're big girls. We can manage it," the lynx said, running a finger round in circles in the bed linen. Fay nodded, and continued.

"We would be fine if you did some sort of double-life thing where you were with one of us in the day and the other in the afternoon," she said, and Fox blinked a little in surprise. "We're best friends, we understand. All we wouldn't want is for you to throw us off if you're bored of us." Fox was smiling and shaking his head as the white dog finished her words. Quite to the surprise of both female pilots, Fox leant forward, and running a hand through their hair, kissed them one after another.

"I may be rubbish with girls, but I know when I've made a good signing of two good pilots. The only way I'll be relinquishing you from the team is if you die, or you want out," Fox said, leaning back and doing his best to hide the incredible shade of scarlet he would have turned. Both Fay and Miyu blinked in surprise, and then smiled, slipping off both sides of the bed, and walking to the door, arms around each others' waists.

"We appreciate it," both of them said simultaneously, winking at their captain before separating and vanishing out the door. Fox laid back against his bed, smiling to himself and rubbing the spots of Miyu's kisses, allowing his blush to fully surface. While Falco still daydreamt, Fox crossed to a communications pad at a desk against one of his walls, and began clicking away at the touch-sensitive pad, writing a short 'scratch pad' message, and sent it to Bill Grey.

The fox had no idea when the mutt would get the message, he could be at his own pad right now, or he might not have access to one for some time. Once the message was fully composed and sent off though, Fox felt a little more restful. One mystery was to be answered shortly; and getting dressed in a loose green shirt, a fresh pair of trousers and some old, soft trainers, he left the now slightly drooling Falco in his room as he left for the command desk, to solve some more.

* * *

"Thanks, General," said Fox, saluting respectfully as the old bloodhound signed off from the main computer. He'd contacted the general to get an update on the current state of affairs on Corneria, with Peppy in the chair next to him to give him other advice about what had happened in the two-and-a-half LST cycles since he'd been burnt by the strange insect. The hare beside him was glancing over at his covered back in a slightly concerned way - perhaps the fact that Fox had actually been in serious trouble had re-stoked Peppy's paternal role.

"I'm fine, it just prickles a bit," the fox reassured the old crewmember, though Peppy looked far from reassured.

"I'd like you to have it double-checked when we're next on Corneria," he urged, and Fox sighed, but nodded, rubbing his green eyes. Much as he didn't want to disrespect the medical abilities of both ROB and the mysterious Dr Valerie Spaniel, it would probably be a sensible idea to get it checked by fully qualified doctors in a surgery with everything available. He might just check in with his GP - a friendly if very nitpicking and analytical collie by the name of Dr Cook.

"Sure thing. Might be a good thing to go back shortly - Slippy will probably be able to see his father for a few days," commented Fox. He noticed a slight tensing coming from Peppy, and he had to smile a little. Beltino Toad had radioed ahead of the rest of the Corneria defence force, asking if he could hire the three renegades who had helped Fox and Fay out against the insect things on Fortuna. When Peppy had got round to reporting that there were runaways and criminals on board, Slippy's pre-warning had managed to get them all immunity by masquerading as some of Beltino Laboratories' private guards. Needless to say, Peppy was more than a little ticked off at that.

"Speaking of going back, Fox - Phoenix Enterprises want to know if you'd be willing to go and see them about any potential upgrades to our craft," Peppy added, changing the subject. Fox's ears twitched, and he obediently turned to look at his old friend. "I want to go and talk to General Pepper while we're there, and maybe get a few words in with some of my old friends at the card club - could I leave my wish list for you to deal with?" he asked. Fox grinned in response.

"Sure thing. I may have to go alone though - depends on whether Fay wants to go off and do her own thing. Miyu and Falco especially will be kids in a toy shop as soon as we let them in the door of PE," he murmured, and for the first time in a while, Peppy smiled a genuine smile.

"Sounds sensible. You've heard that Tauv is reshuffling the management around?" asked Peppy, much to Fox's surprise. Tauv Phoenix, the head of one of the biggest space flight companies around was a fennec fox of many surprises, often launching into completely unexpected partnerships with other companies, and as it so happened, just after the Lylat War, Phoenix Enterprises offered to take the construction of the Arspace Arwing A-08 off their hands to allow them to concentrate on more advanced designs, and also their racing team. Fox and Falco had been asked if they wanted race seats, but both had declined (Falco somewhat forcefully made to), and instead they'd gone to a couple of other quick racers whom Fox intended to meet with some time.

"Well, lets' see what he's done this time…" Fox murmured, letting the roller ball slide out of his arm rest, and as the buttons for information retrieval, he murmured a few short commands to the screen, which flickered to life. "Information on: Phoenix Enterprises management structure. Ignore any results any more than five months old," he added as an afterthought, and waited for the interplanetary network to establish. After (according to the information bar in the bottom-left corner of his screen) seven and a half seconds, he was looking at what was essentially a spider diagram of the Phoenix Enterprises structure with the face of the grinning fennec fox in the centre, his name underneath.

"Ha! I knew Yosef would get a better position sooner or later!" squeaked a voice behind them, and both Peppy and Fox looked round to see Slippy looking at the right of the screen with eager eyes, ones magnified quite a lot due to the frog wearing a pair of huge magnifying goggles. The effect was particularly unnerving because it looked as though a set of eyes already much too large had been inflated with an air pump - Slippy's eyes now were larger than his hands. Both Fox and Peppy looked back and noticed the name 'Yosef Jurinov' indicating a solemn-looking salamander under a circle of the spider diagram that read 'plasma generator research.'

"He's Venomian, isn't he?" Peppy asked with a raised eyebrow. Fox and Peppy gave him withering glances, but nodded. Obviously, Tauv had been scouting around for talent from the 'other side' during the war, and as soon as hostile movements had died down, they were scooped from the remnants of their old empire to work for a Cornerian company. Slippy knew the salamander from a slightly less dramatic stage in the Lylat War - though no less important - when the two amphibians had met in a hangar with both attempting to steal a high-velocity power drive from a downed craft. Somehow, alliances didn't get in the way of the two exchanging contact details, and after the war, Slippy found his acquaintance was alive, and on the run from the ruins of Andross' empire.

"There, that's who we'll be needing to talk to," barked Fox eventually, pointing to the top-left of the screen. Peppy and Slippy followed his finger, with Slippy just giving a few enormous blinks and Peppy's mouth tightening a little before his eyes widened as well.

"Arwing Testing and Modifications Chief… Fara Phoenix. It's his daughter, isn't it?" asked Slippy rather blankly. Fox nodded, rubbing his muzzle a little. He then picked up a few paper scratch notes and a pen and began to scribble down a few notes upon it. Soon, he was done, and shuffled them into a pile, pocketing the lot.

"Peppy, have the crew assemble in the mess hall - I'm giving the details of our next moves over lunch. Slippy, before you get there, tell ROB to set a course for Corneria City and if you don't mind, remove the goggles," he said carefully, not noticing Slippy's slight blush as he pulled them off. "I'll just be looking over our next job assignment."


	10. Chapter 8

Lucy Hare was often considered an odd child ever since she was born. Her parents' very contrasting fur styles had seemingly been thrown out the window to make a new colour - something that she, much like her mother had done when she'd got past eighteen, covered up with some plain brown dye.

She wasn't sure if pink fur, even if it was a more neutral colour than some of the furres who turned up with bright bubble-gum colour, had been the key reason for her father not particularly wishing anything from her; or perhaps he'd just wanted a son. James had one, why couldn't he have one?

Whatever the reason had been, Peppy had forbidden Lucy from entering the Academy of Flight - it had fallen to her mother to make a false identity for her; in fact that was the very last thing she'd ever done for her daughter - she was sent out on a mission shortly after, and never came back. Lucy had attended the funeral but more out of a will to observe protocol than to really pay respect to an empty casket. She simply wanted to get to Venom and find out who and what happened to her mother.

As it stood at the moment though, she still had one more year of Academy to go through before getting her flying licence. That is, if she ever got it, thanks to the good General's unique way of passing female candidates.

There was some hope though - she could get a contract to fly with a privateer group owned by one of her old friends if she did a job for them. Rather eagerly, Lucy instantly agreed, and then asked what the mission was.

"_I want these two dead. You can do it yourself, you can arrange 'accidents', but I want these two dead."_ The hare had been in quite some shock, but wasn't able to back out of the arrangement if she ever wanted a future where she could find out first hand what her mother's fate had been. _"Pepper will fail you, Lucy. He failed me, he failed Monroe, he was going to fail these two before McCloud came to their rescue. I'm the only one who can offer you a realistic place."_

"I hope you're right, Cyrene," whispered Lucy, pulling her jacket tighter around her in the cold of the high roof she was on. It was settling into near the Winter Solstice, the coldest and darkest point of the year; Lucy could feel the cold winds howling up here on the roof as she looked through a pair of binoculars at the paint shop that Miyu Lynx was expected to visit around now. Lucy had been given the tip-off having asked Cyrene if she could supply her with location information. Miyu was going to be the harder of the two to track down given that her friends and contacts were much more elusive than Fay Spaniel's.

There were still a few minutes left before Miyu's scheduled appointment with the ship decorators, but Lucy was still scanning the area for sight of the bobcat. Not seeing her, she put them to one side, and sat down, huddling up against the cold. She didn't really know anything about Fay and Miyu, except the snippets on the news that had been put out about them - two female recruits on the Star Fox team being the only coherent information piece between all the clips.

Some of these channels theorised that it was their looks that got them on the team, but Lucy knew Fox better than that. Admittedly Peppy hadn't let her see him much when they were young (his potential embarrassment at not having a male successor like James had maybe being a factor; but Fox had always made time to come and see her even if she was two years his junior. He wasn't the sort to just pick a pilot because they looked pretty. Falco on the other hand…

"_That's him!"_ thought Lucy suddenly, noticing a blob of blue down in the city streets below. She picked up her binoculars and focussed them in on Falco himself, who appeared to be in a deep embrace with another figure. Abruptly, they both pulled away, and Lucy found her target.

* * *

"Waste of time," said Miyu, grinning as she flicked her short hair back. "You're a crap kisser, blue bird." Falco scowled, but his beak creased into a smile a little as he dug out his wallet and flipped Miyu a fifty-credit piece. The pair of them, on the way to the paint shack, had passed one of Falco's old girlfriends, who had shouted out to Miyu (most likely thinking she was his new partner) that 'Lombardi couldn't kiss to save his life'. In light of this, Falco was willing to trade fifty of his credits for proof of the contrary.

"I bet you're just saying that for the money," Falco as he slanted his eyebrows in an attempt to show off. The lynx snorted, and tried to open out a jean pocket that the Great Fox's washing cycle had obviously ironed shut. Finding it stuck somewhat, Miyu swore and leant against a wall to try and wrench open the denim, when the stone wall beside her ear splintered into pieces with no more than a whistling crack.

"Ow!" yelped Miyu, the credit piece falling from her hand as it clutched a bleeding ear as shards from the stone sliced into the skin beneath the fur. However, her more experienced team mate took the initiative, and grabbed the lynx, shoving her into a nearby alleyway. The bird then withdrew his pistol and vanished out into the street, checking the blast at the wall and then having a guess where it had come from.

"Wherever the bastard is, he's using a silencer - it's why we didn't hear anything," he yelled back rather pointlessly, scanning around in case of another shot. For some reason nobody really knew the reason for, Falco was a very difficult target even for snipers. Most attributed it to the fact that he never ever stood still, but some said that he emitted a strange aura from his feathers. Whatever the reason, ridiculous or no, Mr Lombardi had never once had a problem with standing in full sniper range.

"Call in backup, you prat!" growled Miyu from inside the alley, having ripped off the bottom of her tank top and used it to staunch the blood coming from her ear. Falco rolled his eyes - perhaps it was just the thought of personal decoration on her ship or the bleeding, but Miyu had forgotten that Fox and Fay were in the middle of what would most likely be an hour-long press conference, Peppy was in a tactical meeting which would take even longer, and Slippy was with his father in the labs.

"Like who?" he shot back, reminding her of the situation of the team in their locations. This prompted a four-letter expletive from Miyu as she staggered to the very edge of the alley, her own blaster in hand and looking around with her sharp purple eyes. No shots came out, fortunately for the pair of them, but this time, Falco had an idea.

"Here, Miyu - lets' try using you as bait," he said, and before the feline could object, he had hauled her fully out of the alleyway to stand just beside her.

"The frag do you think you're doing?" asked the indignant lynx as another splinter of stone ripped up from behind them, the shot having gone wide over their heads. Falco's eyes glittered though, and he pushed the cat back into the alleyway, joining her after a minute or so.

"Sorry about that, but…" he began, before Miyu clouted him across the face with an open palm. He recovered from it, rubbing his beak and working his jaw to see if it would still work. "Okay, I kind of deserved that," he admitted grudgingly to the rolled eyes and growl of Ms Lynx. "But on the plus side, we now know where he's shooting from, that you're his target, and he doesn't want to kill you," he said with an expression of a man in court who has just given some vital evidence and is hoping it will be accepted. Miyu suddenly looked interested.

"How can you tell?" she asked in confusion. Falco smirked, tapping his beak.

"Easy - he only shot at you once you emerged fully from the alley, which shows he's in a building at right angles to this alley. Secondly, if he's not nervous, he's inexperienced. A good sniper would have taken you out the second I yanked you out of there." This didn't do much to raise Miyu's mood, as she glared at him from under a stray bit of her makeshift bandage.

"So if it had been a good sniper, I would be dead?" she asked scathingly. Falco looked up for a moment, thinking about the possible permutations of Miyu in range of a good sniper, and came up with a rather unsavoury answer.

"Yeah, you would have been. Could you slap the other side - so it at least feels even?" he asked, wincing a little in anticipation of a woman's wrath. Miyu didn't comply.

"Well, are we going to do something about this bad sniper who doesn't really want to kill me even though I'm his target?" asked Miyu irately, readjusting her ear bandage so it kept it close to her head, and didn't flap around. Falco rubbed his cheek and set his blaster to a few fractions below 'overcharge', nodding seriously.

"Does the pair of us shutting up and kicking him off the building on fire appeal to you?" he asked, eyebrow raised. Miyu grinned a fanged smile, and then let out a triumphant and eager yowl.

"That's my language!" she said gleefully, also cranking up her blaster's power, and moving up, with Falco, towards the alley entrance. Her eyes were more used to dark conditions than Falco's so peeking just one around the edge, she could make out the glints of the dying sunlight on the remnants of glass in some of the buildings. She was looking for a different sort of reflection, which could indicate an open window that a sniper would be looking out.

"Anything?" asked Falco, squinting in the direction she had been looking. Miyu shook her head, having scanned the two most likely buildings where Falco had indicated her attacker was.

"Either they've left, or they're on a roof," she muttered, glancing up at the tops of the two buildings. The sun was behind the two mercenaries, hence the window glare being easy to pick up, but it wasn't illuminating anything sharp on the roof. A few aerials and chimneys, but nothing that looked like a sniper.

"OK - I guess the paint jobs will have to wait," muttered Falco, taking some sort of metal contraption from his belt and locking it on to the side of his blaster. Miyu guessed the impressive looking widget was simply there to detract a possibly unhappy mind from the situation of none of Miyu's paint job on her ship, and for the most part, it was doing a good job. Just to spite Falco though, she opted not to ask what in Lylat the cobbled-together bit of metal was supposed to be.

"You'll have to go across the open bit - he might be crap and or not willing to kill, but I'm not about to go and take my chances if he's got a scope good enough," Miyu muttered, looking back down the alleyway to where it split off into two. Falco nodded, and raising his blaster, stepped out into the open as the cat dashed off down the T-junction. As soon as she was out of his sight, and he'd taken a few more steps into the open area in front of the two tower blocks, his comm.-link buzzed.

"Lombardi," he said quietly into his piece, letting his caller know who had picked up.

"_Have you done it?"_ asked the voice on the other end, somewhat impatiently. Falco looked over to the alleyway, and shook his head - not that it would do much good.

"I ran into problems," he said carefully. There was an irritated grunt on the other end.

"_You're not getting your money for slacking off. I want it done soon, and with photographic evidence if possible," _the voice added sternly, breaking off abruptly. Falco snarled through his beak, charging up his blaster and marching off in the way he'd come.

"Some people have no patience…"

--

"So, Mr McCloud, last question for you today. Throwing it open to the crowd?" asked the rather agitated alligator, originally Fox and Fay's guide around the newly merged Arspace Dynamics and Phoenix Enterprises and now haphazardly trying to organise the crowd of reporters who had somehow got wind that the two mercenaries had made planet landing and were visiting the factories. Fox had to admit that he was doing a really sterling job, having also had to deal with a bunch of questions hurled at a few of the better known members of the factory when they'd come round the corner to see what all the hubbub was about. Some, most notably Tauv Phoenix himself, had been able to manage them very well, but Fox and Fay's experience with reporters ranged from sketchy to absolutely nothing at all. The alligator mopped his brow with his shirt and pointed to a frantically leaping mouse at the back of the pack.

"Thank you," she said with a smile at the reptile. "Stars And Sports magazine - Mr McCloud, we've already heard earlier that you rejected a race seat here at Arspace Racing to continue with your flying - will you ever reconsider that offer?" she asked, which was responded with a few groans from the redtop reporters, who had been asking nothing but personal and rather pointless questions throughout the session, and probably wanted another.

"I almost daily have re-thinks about it," Fox admitted after thinking about it for a moment or two. "I'm not sure if it's really something for me at the moment though - I'm only nineteen, nearly twenty, at the moment and if I was to launch into such a well-respected race series without assurance that I'd have a perfect team behind me and a veteran racer alongside to help me out here, I'd probably easily get scared out of my wits. Tirren here has already testified to that," he added, gesturing to a black-furred mutt on his right, one of the new racers that Tauv had pressured Arspace to put in a cockpit of one of their race vehicles.

"C'mon Fox - you've done much scarier things than go round and round a race track!" Tirren Gösser interjected, rubbing his black frizzy hair. The canine was pretty young, though about five years Fox's senior, and earlier he'd admitted he'd said he never wanted to go back into one of the ships after the first time he tested it. Apparently Tauv had faith in him, and though many reporters had scoffed at that, the CEO of Phoenix Enterprises was a clever man and often noticed talent in those who most had overlooked.

"Not at over four hundred klicks an hour through tunnels," replied Fox with his eyebrows raised, and Tirren shrugged and grinned.

"Question for Mr Gösser?" asked the alligator, and as another reporter started to ask the dog about any of his superstitions, Fox felt his comm.-bead chime in his ear. He glanced over to a rather harassed looking Fay, who was still watching the others sitting at the table that had been brought up only after a while of the interviewees standing up and taking questions. Obviously, it wasn't a team wide message, perhaps private for him. Fox didn't want to stand up and answer it now, and so ignored the chiming until it stopped.

"Thank you, Tirren," came the distinctive accent of Mr Phoenix, and obviously as Fox was trying to focus on anything other than the ringing, he'd missed the black mutt's question. The young dog quickly vacated his seat and trotted off back towards the direction he'd come, probably now glad to escape the cascade of reporters.

"Miss Spaniel?" asked a voice from the crowd, and Fox glanced over at his team-mate. Fay had taken quite a metaphorical beating from the press and only on her first time, quite fairly, she looked exhausted. It was usual protocol (or at least politeness) to respond to at least five questions from a reporter, but the two Star Fox members had been caught for nearly an hour with only various Phoenix Enterprises staff to take the burden off them with some questions directed at them.

"Mm-hm?" she asked with a hint of sleepiness in her voice. She was sitting up, but any sparkle behind her eyes was very much gone. The alligator seemed to notice this, and like Fox - who also wanted to get away and find out who was calling him - announced that this would be Fay's last question, and scanned the crowd for a raised hand.

"Yes, sir?" he asked, motioning to a Great Dane with close-cropped headfur as he raised a microphone.

"Thank you. Miss Spaniel, you are the only member of the Star Fox team who still has both parents alive. Do you think this at all affects your standing with the other members of the team?" he asked, and Fox felt a slight pinch of irritation at why family always had to be a question topic raised at every press conference, usually only by the young reporters. Was the death of a family member that difficult to really understand or to leave alone?

"No," said Fay decisively, but only after a short pause. "Having parents has never affected my relationship with Miyu; and I see no reason why any others on the ship should be bothered." She added the last bit slightly tentatively though, and glanced at Fox. He shrugged, eager to get away now, and threw in his credit's worth.

"I have no parents, as many of you know, and I have no ill feelings towards Slippy who still has his father, or Peppy, who contacts his mother from time to time. As anyone who studied maths would know, zero multiplied by two is still zero, and that's how much ill feeling I have towards Fay," he said, deciding on being a little articulate at the end. A hubbub of voices began to raise, but the alligator got in there first.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, that was Fox McCloud and Fay Spaniel!" he said, announcing that their time was up, and gratefully the two canids rose up from their seats and began to move off into another corridor. A protest rose up from the redtop reporters, but Fox and Fay paid it no heed. As soon as they were down a few corridors, and a chair was in sight, Fay flopped into it with a long sigh.

"Oh, I never want to do that ever again. Please?" she asked, her eyes closed and head leant back against the wall. Fox smiled grimly, and nodded. It was never nice giving press conferences, but quite often it wasn't a choice he could make. If he refused, the tabloids would portray him as some sort of uncommunicative bastard, and Fox could do without that label when he took a walk through a Corneria park late at night when going to one of his favourite restaurants.

"Hang on, I have to make a call back," he said, opening up his comm.-link and looking through the 'missed calls' list. When he got to the most recent in the list, his eyes widened by some margin, Fay didn't notice, as she appeared to be resting a little in order to recuperate from the interviews. However, someone else coming down the corridor did notice his surprised expression.

"Who sent the tasteless joke?" asked Fara Phoenix, a slight grin on her face as she approached the taken-aback fellow fox. Fox looked up, shaking his head as the fennec came to stand by his side, peering over his shoulder at the list of names. Fox tried to fend off the slight blush rising in his cheeks as Fara leant close. He didn't know the fennec girl very well, but he and Fay had got on well in chatting terms when they'd met her in the Arwing development chambers.

"Wasn't a joke - a ring from an old friend, it would seem," muttered Fox, letting trails of darkness enter his words towards the end. He didn't particularly want Fara to read in, but she was a relatively tall girl, and was easily able to see over his shoulder if she stood on tiptoe. The screen was showing one name, and Fara seemed to realise the slightly shocked expression on Fox's face.

"Fragging hell…" she whistled. "What's he calling you for?" Fox shrugged, placing the bead back in his ear and turning it on, selecting the name 'W. O'Donnell' and selecting 'contact'. Fara glanced across to him with a raised eyebrow - had it been anyone on his team, Fox would have tried to explain his logic to them, but he didn't know how much he could take Fara into his confidence. There were three chimes on the other end before it was answered.

"Press conference. Pretty bad time for you to call," Fox said, unusually for him getting the words down the line first. A chuckle on the other end was familiar enough, the voice that followed it only half-necessary.

"_I was in the crowd, pup. Meant I could at least prove I did call you if you try to deny it," _Wolf murmured with a note of smugness in his voice. Fox growled, the noise awakening Fay a little.

"Wasshappening?" she mumbled, still trying to wake up properly. Fara helped her out of the chair and filled her in on what she knew of the situation as Fox replied.

"You don't prank-call people, I remember that much - you've obviously got something you want to talk about," he said, trying to keep it short and business-like. As far as he wanted to be concerned for the moment, all Wolf and he had to talk about were their jobs. When O'Donnell replied, his voice was comfortingly to-the-point.

"_Fair enough, I'm not in the mood for too much joking either,"_ he said gruffly. _"I need to talk to you about that swan girl in our year,"_ he added, and Fox felt his hackles rise a little. Fay nudged him in the side and mouthed 'what is it?' at him, but Fox lifted a palm to quieten her for now.

"I remember her - had some business recently too," he said levelly, not using Cyrene's name. Fay seemed to huff a little at being left out, and fell back to talk to Fara.

"_More than business, it'd seem. She came to me asking if I'd do a job for her, taking you out,"_ he said, and Fox flicked his head around, watching to see if Wolf himself was waiting there with a gun in his hand at the back of his neck. _"I declined - no need to go paranoid,"_ he added, a tinge of laughter coming to his words.

"Unlike you," muttered Fox. "You've usually been up and ready for my blood." This last comment caused Fara's large ears to twitch, and she relayed it to Fay, who in turn frowned at Fox, most likely for not letting her in on his conversation with an old 'friend'.

"_I rank my enemies by priority, and I remember it wasn't you who ripped my eye out," _Fox nodded gravely, despite the fact that Wolf couldn't see it on the other end. _"I thought I'd get you in the mood to talk a little more - I'm not going to do any more over the phone. We need to talk in person,"_ he added, and Fox narrowed his eyes.

"We'll see," he said, terminating the connection quickly. As soon as he looked towards the two women, he was faced very much with a faceful of rather irate Fay.

"Hey Fox - if someone you and your team had to shoot down in the war and was trying to shoot you down in response is calling you, could you at least let your team know what the deal is?" Fox raised his palms again to try and quieten the dog down, and very fortunately, she backed off to give the vulpine some breathing room.

"Allright, I wasn't going to keep you in the dark if I knew a lot," Fox insisted, and Fay's expression softened a little. "Wolf just contacted to say he had been in touch with Cyrene, and needs to speak to me in person about it." Fay folded her arms and tilted her head off to one side.

"Sounds like a set-up to me," she said sceptically. Fox nodded, but raising a finger, glancing around so that no-one else apart from the two women could hear.

"Except for the fact that Cyrene's one of the few people he hates worse than me," he explained, and at interested looks from both Fara and Fay, he gave a smile and went on. "She was the one who got his eye ripped out when we were all at college together. It was after that Wolf was discharged for being deemed unfit to fly a ship for Corneria. Wolf blames me for that reason because I didn't know if I could really stand up for him to keep him in."

"She's more of a bitch than I give her credit for," whistled Fay, running a hand through her head-fur. Fara nodded in agreement in the background, but her short hair was left untouched.

"Obviously he's going to have his chameleon friend nearby even if he says to meet alone, so are you going to play dirty as well?" she asked, her arms folded over her flight suit. Fox stroked his muzzle for a bit, thinking about how to approach this problem.

"We always met at the same place when we had sensitive stuff to discuss, so I guess it'll be the same this time," he murmured. "It's a mix between a restaurant and a bar - doesn't serve heavy drinks, but nor heavy food, a mix of light of the both. Keeps eyes on the business if you're not dealing with a kilo steak," he added in explanation, and Fay nodded.

"So, you're thinking Falco or Slippy disguises himself as a barman?" she suggested, but her captain shook his head.

"They're too well known - you and Miyu too are all over the magazines, otherwise I would have asked you to play a waitress," he admitted, causing the white dog to flush a little, her earlier indignation at being left out of the conversation fading quickly.

"I could do a waiter," Fara suggested, much to the surprise of both mercenaries. "I suppose you're paying a fair price for the ships I'm developing, and you're both nice guys. It could be a favour for you, and I rarely get the chance to leave the labs nowadays, so a night with some interesting purpose would be cool."

"You're sure?" asked Fay, blinking in surprise. The fennec shrugged and nodded.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I'm a pilot first and foremost, but I know how to handle myself when staying quiet - I learnt in order to hear to all the conversations my parents had when I was a teenager," she admitted. Fox and Fay didn't need to ask any more, or ever glance at each other - the difficulties that Tauv Phoenix and Olive Trulli both had during their marriage were another of the stories the tabloids had so loved splashing across other peoples' faces - both knew better than to make a big deal about it to Fara.

"Well, I'll contact you with more details when I get them," said Fox with a smile, and shook Fara's hand firmly, and the fennec fox replied with a grin, shaking Fay's hand afterwards.

"As long as the rest of your guys are in a tree outside with sniper rifles, I think I'll be all right to take the job no other questions asked," she called after them as the two canids were beckoned over by their alligator guide, tapping his wrist computer to identify they were leaving now. McCloud and Spaniel waved over their shoulders even as Fay pulled out her own communications gear - a little more stylish than Fox's in the sense that rather than grey plastic, they were white-laminated with pink muffling plastic.

"Hey, Miyu, are you there?" she asked after selecting a name and waiting for the dial tone to go through. There was a bit of a pause, and then her brow furrowed. "Miyu? Miyu?" Fox now looked round, concerned as panic began to etch into Fay's features. "Miyu? If you're there, pick up the damn thing…"

"Here, I'll try and get Falco," Fox offered, clicking up the number but only getting a snapped line image on his communicator. "He's occupied at the moment…"

--

"Yeah, it's done," muttered the bird into the small bead beside his beak. "Wasn't easy, there was a bit of a distraction, but it's done, clean. And I have the money…"


	11. Chapter 9

Even Fox had to admit, the look that Wolf had done to disguise himself was a world-class effort. The lupine mercenary had grown his hair shoulder length, and dyed it dark grey, so it flopped around his head, covering up his bad eye and also (potentially) reducing garnered attention in the bar he and Fox were meeting at. Fox had simply dressed in completely plain clothes, neutral colours and no logos - funnily enough that had worked wonders, even when walking past a filming crew doing an article on a fire that had caught out at a small shop downtown.

"Hey, pup," grunted Wolf as Fox seated himself opposite him, shuffling into the darker corner of the benches, to avoid being noticed. The only person who knew the real identities of the two people at the table was the 'waiter' who'd shown them there and taken down their false names.

"Patrick," acknowledged Fox with a brief nod of his head, remembering the false name Wolf had given Fara . He gave a brief glance around, wondering if he could spot Leon anywhere, though it'd mostly be a futile attempt. "Shall we cut to the key stuff?" he asked, eyebrow raised. Wolf gave an appreciative nod - he was never one to dwell away from the key subject when he had a choice.

"Sure," he said, drawing some papers from inside his leather jacket and pushing them across the table. Fox scooped them all up and blinked as he saw a table of sorts, listing the names of various bounty hunters, gun-runners and mercenaries, along with personal details, and also what were titled as 'mercenary attributes'

"What're these?" asked Fox, flicking through the three pages, pausing only when he came to a familiar name. He was there, as was Wolf, and so was Ramón, the duck that had been leading Ben, Linda and Darren.

"They're from Cyrene's personal database," Wolf explained. "She's been making lists of the top mercenaries in the galaxy, planetary as well as interplanetary, and it's her aim to try and recruit them all," he added, causing Fox to blink a little. This really was an attempt at global dominance.

"So she approached you?" Fox asked, more or less rhetorically. O'Donnell nodded, and took a gulp of the beer before him.

"Yeah," he said with a trace of venom in his voice. "Somehow thought I'd forgive her if I got control of the J-craft and enough money for a new ship," he said with a short growl. Fox said nothing at this point, not wishing to bring up a subject that Wolf was already trying to hide.

"Do you know how much of this list has been hired?" Fox asked, and Wolf shrugged.

"I'd guess about a third. About a half of the guys on the list got hired and then killed by her because she suspected their loyalty, so she's got their second-in-commands working for her now. I suspected that could be what happened to me, but something tells me Leon wouldn't quite so keen to work for her," Wolf said shortly, a few seconds before a small silver dart hit the table, a scrawled note on it.

"I don't know," Fox raid, pocketing the note with raised eyebrows. Wolf snickered, rubbing a bit of the curtain of near-black hair adorning his head,

"Leon's always had a bit of a soft spot for bird girls, possibly that's what's going on," the lupine said off-handedly. "But in any case, we turned down the offer, and practically had to blast our way out the side of the ship - she can orchestrate some damn good resistance when she wants to," he added.

"Did she detonate the ship after you were clear?" asked Fox, to a quizzical look from Wolf, which more or less said that either she hadn't, or he hadn't noticed it. "What type was it?" he asked instead, and at this, Wolf seemed to be able to answer a bit better.

"It was a Reaper Class," he explained, much to the shock of Fox. Reaper ships were often used in space close quarters fighting - it had very high mobility; high armour; and short-range weapons, blades and buzz saws along the hull. The idea was that the ship would set up with high speed and shields, but low weapon power, and blast into a crowded fleet, hopefully eliminating most ships by simply colliding with them. It was also sometimes used for boarding action. They were also notoriously difficult to afford and maintain.

"Where's she getting these ships?" Fox wondered, scratching his head and gritting his teeth. Cyrene was a very potential threat to Corneria, especially post war, when the military strength was poor, and by hiring or eliminating most mercenaries in the system, that left attacked planets with no viable means of defence.

"Probably she's restoring them. I don't know if you took a good look at the bodywork of the ships you've seen, but they're mostly cut-and-shut jobs - patched up relatively badly," he informed, and Fox's ears perked up at this.

"So if we eliminate her factory or workshops, we might be able to cut off her production lines," he thought, rubbing his muzzle. Wolf laughed a little, bringing Fox back.

"You and bird-boy and your harem against something as heavily armoured as that?" Wolf said incredulously. "I dunno about her, but if I had a J-craft, I'd keep it pretty close to what I didn't want anyone close to. Four Arwings aren't going to cut it," he said, shaking his head. Fox was considering mainly the tactical pointers that Wolf was throwing up, and didn't quite notice the sixth word until he opened his mouth to speak, causing an embarrassing moment where his mouth floundered for a bit, before he went on with his words with a red tinge darkening his cheeks.

"So what are you suggesting - we wait until they come to attack Corneria and do guerrilla runs against them?" he asked, but Wolf shook his head, and leant in close and grinned.

"Nope. I'm suggesting a Mercenary Army," he said as if suggesting something for dinner. Fox only just managed to avoid catastrophic brain meltdown as he stared at Wolf, and then down at the list below him, noting that a few of the mercenaries' names were ringed in blue ink.

"That's crazy," he whispered, flicking through the names Wolf had highlighted as potential members of this army he was suggesting. "We'd never be able to pay them all, or get them all to work together." He then focussed on one name. "Most of these are nutcases - I've heard of this one guy, Condemned. He's supposed to be…"

"…what, the most vicious, aggressive and uncompromising person in the galaxy? Can you imagine wanting anyone else in front of you when storming a ship?" Wolf asked, and Fox had to admit, he had a point. He checked over the names again, and noted something.

"Practically all of these are felines." Wolf shrugged.

"Race has never been a bar for me," he said. "I don't think it's one of yours either," he added, and Fox had to concede. If anything, he was open-opportunities, the only restriction for entering Star Fox was that you weren't an idiot, you were an (at least slightly) above average flyer, and you could take care of your body. The last thing he wanted to deal with was an addiction in one of his crewmembers.

"I remember Cyrene didn't like…" Fox caught Wolf's angry eye, and realised he'd let slip the conversation topic. It seemed someone had been keeping an eye on them though, and Fox soon found a blaster muzzle pressed against his temple, looking across the table, Wolf was in the same predicament, glaring at him.

"McCloud, O'Donnell - Ms Swan doesn't like being talked about behind her back, perhaps you could come with us to tell her your plans?" asked the one closest to Fox, the slightly awkward way he got round some words possibly indicated that he was avian. Before either canine could respond though, a green flash had landed between both, and after Fox blinked, both birds had hands to their throats, vainly trying to stop a fountain of red gore pulsing out. Leon Powalski stood in the centre of it all, blades in his hands which were slowly dripping and added to the pool on the ground. The reptile seemed immune to the screams of the paying populace as they fled the diner, but his swivel eyes searched for the next target. Fox didn't have his blaster on him, but Wolf threw him some sort of odd weapon.

"I'll explain all the functions another time!" he roared as he threw himself out of their alcove to cover one half of the restaurant. "Button under your thumb fires the thing - don't hold it down!" he added, and Fox - getting the basic idea, joined his old flight partner, each covering the bar-room as more of Cyrene's operatives threw themselves in the doors and shattered windows to try and take down the two mercenaries.

Fox experimentally pressed the button on the weapon in his hand that was located under his thumb - he assumed it was in the right location given how snugly it went into his right hand - and nearly fell back in surprise as a bright lance of plasma shot out of the end of the gun and went straight through two avians, who stared in shock at the cauterized holes in their chests before collectively collapsing to the ground.

Fara had eschewed her disguise by now - her tie and jacket were discarded, and the top button of her white shirt was also undone. A pair of blasters were in her hands and the batteries were being unloaded into the now organised kill team. There were ten birds left, and had formed a temporary barricade behind some of the benches. This was allowing them to fire blindly over the top, and despite the inaccuracy, they were bound to hit them if they were out in the open for too long. Leon, Fox and Wolf all made a dash for the bar once Fara beckoned them over, and instantly it seemed Wolf took in the water a bit more.

"Phoenix?" he asked in surprise, and the fennec nodded, twitching one of her long ears as a stray bullet smacked into the side of the wooden bar with a high scream. Wolf turned to Fox, who was wrestling with his comm.-link. "Nicely done. I didn't expect that," he murmured.

"I knew I had to be sneaky," muttered Fox as the link flickered to life. Falco's face appeared on the view screen, his eyes covered by a pair of night-vision goggles.

"You need us now, Foxboy?" he asked, and Fox nodded, giving the 'o' symbol with his thumb and forefinger.

"I'd advise you covered your ears and curled up," Fox said, doing exactly that. Fara folded her ears up as well and shrank as she curled herself up, her already diminutive figure meaning she became a very small target indeed when in a ball. Leon and Wolf glanced at each other before taking up on Fox's offer. It was possibly a good idea as a few seconds later, half the restaurant was blown apart as Falco sent a rocket right behind the table where Cyrene's goons were hiding. Anyone left was nailed by Fay and Miyu's sniper rifles - Fox had made them all stay on a rooftop with easy views to the glass-walled establishment to give them heavy support if need be.

Once the dust had settled, and the slight ringing in his ears had died down, Fox got to his feet and glanced around the wrecked eating area. He sighed, knowing he would either never be able to come back to this place again, or he'd have to compensate the owner quite heavily. However, Cyrene's kill-team were eliminated (truthfully, they were spread like a very fine jam around the northeast corner of the place, but eliminated would go down better with the authorities if he had to deal with them) and the four pilots were able to get to their feet, and make their escape out the side window, which had been smashed open in the confusion. Sirens were sounding in the air and none of them had any wish to be involved too deeply with the aftermath, especially the press.

As the first of the emergency services arrived at the wrecked bar, seven furres were sprinting away in the shadow of the night, with possibly the most dangerous plan in the history of everything, ever, in their heads.

* * *

"You're serious?" asked Falco in disbelief, echoing the thoughts of every other pilot in the room as the elderly hare nodded sagely. Peppy had only recently returned from the meeting he'd had with the Cornerian high-ranking officers, and hadn't been happy with the way it had gone. The rather gruff and slightly callous attitude he'd had since the war was over was waning now, and he was a little bit more open to talking and passive now.

"Absolutely," he said, with a nod. "O'Donnell might not be the best decision maker, but we're not going to be able to expect any help from Planetary Defence so shortly after a war," he explained. "Loyalist Mercenaries are our best bet."

"I at least trust our good friends in the government are at least keeping the lid on what Cyrene has at her disposal?" asked Miyu, leaning against a wall with her arms folded. Peppy rolled his eyes.

"What else do you think a scared and battered institution would do at this stage? Nope, more or less they've left it to us and anyone else who's going to team up with us," he snorted derisively. He glanced around the assorted pilots, knowing every one of them had something on his or her mind that they wanted to ask him, and he was just hoping they'd get on and do it. As it was, none did.

"Allright guys, I suggest you all go to your rooms and get some rest now - if we're going to be rounding up all the mercenaries in the system, I'd advise we were at our best," Fox then said wearily. There were quite a few murmurs of approval from his team, as all of them filtered slowly (and in some cases with more than a touch of drowsiness) into the cabin area on the Great Fox. The captain, however, headed towards the brig.

The brig had fortunately never seen much use in its' time aboard the ship, but James and Fox after him had never specified its' removal, so it could be used to transport extra goods or prisoners of war. Now though, it was more or less being used for its' purpose.

"Captain Fox McCloud recognised," intoned a voice beside the paw-scanner as Fox placed the print of his hand against it. Some recognition machines required a DNA sample, such as a hair or drop of blood; but Fox believed they were too easy to get a hold of. Somebody's hand was a different matter altogether.

"Lucy?" he asked as he entered the now light brig. In compliance with Cornerian prison requirements, the brig on the Great Fox had adaptive lighting that mimicked the day-night cycle via Lylat Standard Time. Right now, it was about 25:00 LST, and as such the cell had been dark. A light had come on so Fox could see the girl being held there - he couldn't really bring himself to call her a prisoner.

"Fox?" she replied slightly groggily as she sat up on the little cot-bed provided against one wall. Fox crossed over and sat down next to his childhood friend as she rubbed her eyes, and his muzzle twitched as he looked over her bruises. Falco had filled him in on the situation she'd put him and Miyu through - unfortunately, a rather disgruntled Peppy had called him up just as he was preparing to locate her, and asked him to get a hurry-up on dealing with the ship spray-jobs, and in order to shut the elderly lapine up, the avian had gone off to do exactly that.

That had left an extremely irate and bleeding Miyu to climb to the roof, and not realising who it was, she had proceeded to beat Lucy up quite viciously. It wasn't until Falco actually caught up with the pair of them about half an hour later that Miyu had been restrained and told who it was. The falcon had taken her immediately to the Great Fox infirmary to check for any broken bones, but upon finding she was fine except for some bruises and skin abrasions, had sent her to the brig in order to wait for the Captain to talk to her.

"Hey there," McCloud said quietly, placing a hand on her leg, a part of her he knew there weren't any bruises - unlike her arms and face. He wasn't quite able to ask the plain and open question about why she'd been trying to kill one of his team-mates, but he had a strong suspicion.

"Cyrene asked me to do it," whispered the hare, confirming Fox's thoughts. He cocked his head at her, inviting her to go on and explain more. "She said she'd let me fly for her if I did it. I knew I'd never get another flight offer if I didn't take it. I didn't know it was about killing - I just want to be a pilot…" Fox sighed, knowing that had Lucy been allowed into the Academy by her father, she would have made a wicked pilot.

"Lucy, what was wrong with asking me? I know Cyrene was one of your friends, but you know as well as anyone that she's a very cruel woman," Fox asked, sitting back and supporting himself on his free hand.

"My father was what was wrong," Lucy whispered. "He hates it when he can't get things done - it's why he's been so snappy since the end of the war, and before he got involved in it. It's why he also gets angry at girls - he doesn't believe we can do things as well as you boys," she explained, a trace of anger replacing the knot-in-the-throat.

"Lucy, who's the Captain on this ship?" asked Fox solidly. The pink hare glanced up at him and shuffled a little uncomfortably.

"You are," she mumbled, her cheeks growing a shade of red.

"That's right. And Lucy - you may stay on this ship for as long as takes your liking. I have the authority to stop either your father or Miyu giving you hell, but I don't want that to be the case. If one of us is ill, or injured, you're more than welcome to try flying for us as well," said Fox. "This is as a friend, remember. One of your best friends." He would probably have said more, but was broken off as Lucy threw her arms around his chest, nearly strangling him.

"I won't let you down, Fox!" she said gleefully, and Fox grinned as he removed her arms from around her neck, though he followed this up with a slight grimace.

"The only thing is that you'll have to stay here for at least tonight. I don't have a free bedroom," he apologised, but Lucy shrugged.

"It's not awful, and besides - I would have slept in the engine bay to get a flight seat with you," she said earnestly. Fox smiled, but then his ear twitched a little as he ran a hand through her curly pink hair.

"There's one other condition I'm going to have to tell you about tomorrow morning. Consider it a way of paying Miyu back," he said, resulting in a slightly perplexed look . Fox, however, didn't say any more about that. "See you," he said, getting to his feet and waving over his shoulder as Lucy settled her hair back into its' normal state. The hare waved back at him silently, a faint smile on her face until the door shut. Fox leaned against it and took a deep exhale of breath. This was going to take some explaining. He decided to not mess about, and headed towards the dorms.

This late at night, the natural lighting on the Great Fox was practically nil, and Fox nearly found himself reaching for his torch when he wasn't near a port-hole. However, it wasn't really necessary until he got to the cabins themselves, and had to check whose each was. He eventually got to Miyu's, and half-expecting her to be up at this moment, gave a few soft knocks on the door. No answer.

"I don't want to risk waking her up if she's asleep…" murmured Fox, and instead left the dorm area to rendezvous with ROB in the communiqués gallery.

"ROB, can you give me the bio status of Miyu Lynx?" he asked the robot. ROB was active, as usual at nights in case of emergency, but he plugged himself into the ship's main sensors and paused for a few moments as the cat was first of all detected and then scanned remotely.

"Ms Miyu Lynx is currently awake, in good physical health, though has a very stressed and aggressive mind," ROB intoned tonelessly. Fox grumbled, rubbing his head fur as he thanked ROB and walked back to the cabins, hoping the news he was bringing wouldn't cause any of that stress to turn into bruises, gashes and broken bones along his body. He approached the door, gave another succession of soft knocks, and at no answer, swiped his hand over the access panel, causing the door to slide back.

Fox entered the room, thought very nearly didn't at the gaze of a very fired-up pair of purple eyes staring at him from the lynx as she lay in the bed, a pair of headphones clamped around her ears. She had removed the gear she'd worn on sniper duty, it was crumpled in a pile in the corner, and had put on a short-sleeved red T-shirt and a pair of denim shorts.

"Captain," she grumbled dismissively after a few moments of staring, and then fell back against the bed with her eyes closed and the music still thumping away at her eardrums. Fox sighed, not particularly wanting to deal with the angry Miyu like this, but felt he didn't have a choice. He sat down on the side of the bed, and yanked out the cord of the music system. Miyu only paused for a second in ignoring him though.

"Miyu, if it'd help, you can punch me," Fox offered bravely, having considered that it might at least be a way of getting her to talk to him sensibly. The lynx blinked in surprise, and sat up, removing her headphones.

"Are you serious? So if I gave you a slammer in the chest right now, nothing'd happen?" she asked, a tinge of hopefulness in her voice. Fox nodded, going cold on the inside. Miyu weighed up the options, her head tilting from side to side as she thought, and eventually decided on the plan of motion, drawing her fist back and smashing it hard into Fox's sternum. The vulpine was thrown clear off the bed and landed hard on his back amid a pile of Miyu's old clothes destined for the laundry (or the bin - it was difficult to tell).

"I'm… giving Lucy… stay on the ship," gasped Fox as he pulled himself to his feet. He didn't particularly need to, as the lynx caught him by the scruff of the neck and threw him to the bed, growling. She said nothing, but simply caught him by his stripe of hair and yanked it up, revealing his muzzle to her. This was given a pair of slaps across it.

"Something tells me you're not deliberately trying winding me up here," growled Miyu as she let her captain go, her shoulders heaving as she took in one breath after another. "But you're doing a damn good job of it." A very battered Fox supported himself on his arms, dragging himself to a sitting position, reflecting that this had potentially been worse for him than he'd expected.

"But… she isn't an official member," he gasped again. Not attracting any response from the lynx, he went on. "You're her official superior. She has to answer to you - that's the condition." This got a response.

"So… she's basically my underling? I can get her to be my maid, cook, fire support?" she asked, a gleeful grin tugging at the edge of her muzzle. Fox flushed a little, but nodded.

"I haven't told her that yet, but that's the case, yes. She can do it until you figure she's done enough to pay off for treatment for your ear," Fox explained, gesturing to the wrecked thing that had once been quite a serviceable ear for Miyu. She raised a hand to touch it, but probably remembering doctor's orders, lowered it. Her mood had sunk too.

"What kind of treatment can I get?" she asked. Fox sat back down on the bed, trying to move as little as possible to avoid hurting his stomach or face.

"You could have a professional re-structure job, which would take nearly a year but fully restore it as it was, you could just go and have a bionic ear, or you could have the wound sewn up and a few wires placed in for support," Fox murmured. Miyu drummed her fingers on her thigh as she considered the options, eventually looking up.

"I'd go for the third option, personally. Technically, couldn't Fa… sorry, Dr Spaniel do that for me?" she asked, adding the last part with a grin. Fox gave a hesitant smile back, and shrugged.

"I don't know how far Valerie's talents go," he said, going along with the joke and getting a snort out of Miyu. "But it's entirely possible, and we'd be able to stop you bullying Lucy if that was the case." Miyu nodded, and then looked away slowly - Fox frowned and followed her vision to see if there was anything in particular she was looking at - there wasn't anything of note around where she was staying except perhaps her discarded underwear. That wasn't what was on Miyu's mind though.

"You know, if I was in Lucy's shoes, I actually probably would have taken up on the offer as well to be truthful," she admitted. Fox almost knew what was coming next, but let Miyu speak. "I couldn't be in the navy. Fay, maybe - but not me. I don't like 'rail' rules. You're the only viable opportunity for any of us girls who want to fly and have some deal of liberty about us. So it's not the fact that she took the job that gets me. It's just that this was a very nice ear," she explained, her bare foot tracing circles around the ground, collecting a sock and twirling it round before kicking it back off to the rest of the pile of used clothes.

"I don't claim to be the number one employer for female mercenaries," Fox said abashedly. Miyu glanced over her shoulder and smiled.

"Well, we'll find out - maybe there's one of these good guys we're recruiting that might turn out to be a good girl," she said, then crawling across to drape an arm around Fox's shoulders and give him a peck on the cheek. "If I had half the parents I wanted to, I'd be more than proud to show you off to them," she said earnestly, and Fox opened his mouth to say something. He decided, though, that it'd be a stupid thing to say, and instead simply grinned stupidly.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" he asked, sliding out from under Miyu's arm and getting to his feet off the bed. The lynx sniggered.

"Obviously - we live on the same ship," she said sardonically, laughing as Fox flushed furiously heading towards the door. He gave a wave over his shoulder as he exited the room, leaving Miyu alone in her room with a satisfied grin on her face. She'd got to slap her superior, and now had her own little underling.

Life was good.


	12. Chapter 10

Fay was in her 'safe place'. It was a technique she had been taught by the bullying counsellors at school before she got her own personal bodyguard in the form of Miyu. The idea was to close ones' eyes and focus really strongly on the things he or she liked, making them into a little secluded place for them to rest their minds, imagine themselves in.

Despite not particularly needing it as much to make herself feel happier nowadays, Fay had kept the safe place in her mind, and had started changing it slightly to modify it over the years. It had started off as a little clearing with trees all around so the bullies couldn't get at her, and then a pool had been added when she found she liked swimming. After seeing pictures of waterfalls in a book, she thought it looked nice, and so she added one.

When she'd started getting into a fantasy series on the telescreen, she began to imagine one of the main characters, a wolven ranger named Derik, was on hand to give her a back massage. The masseuse was one of the main things that had changed over the years since she was twelve, and at the moment a new figure was taking care of proceedings.

Fox was wearing just his green combat trousers and his red neck scarf as he sat cross-legged on a conveniently placed slab of slate, obediently watching the white dog as she gathered up some lotions and fruits she wanted for him to use on her. Her clothing was another thing that changed greatly each time she visited the clearing, but at the moment she was clothed in a yellow t-shirt with a lavender sarong slung about her hips over her favourite pink bikini.

"Are you ready, mistress?" asked Fox, his eyes naïve and trusting as he remained with his hands on his knees. Despite this being her own mind, some of her real personality showed through and Fay blushed as she stepped to just beside the waterfall, nodding and beckoning for her golden-furred masseuse to come and see to her.

"You know which order to do them in?" she asked, handing two glass bottles to Fox followed by two brightly coloured fruits. Despite the fact that this was the first time Fox had actually been in her mind, he nodded with a pleasant smile on his face. Obviously Derik, Amran or one of the others who'd stood where he was before had taught him the best methods for using them.

"Good," said Fay with a smile on her face as she pulled her shirt off and stepped under the waterfall, allowing the cold water to splash over her body, producing a little shudder from her. Another addition to the dream had been to make the waterfall water rose-scented, but somehow her logical mind seemed to state the only way that was really possibly was having actual rose petals in the stream, which meant that they inevitably got tangled up in her hair at some point. Fox, however, was the perfect gentleman and as soon as he was standing beside the dog, he began to gently pluck the petals out of her hair.

"I think they look quite nice," he said politely, now lifting one of the small glass vials with a golden type of shampoo in it, proceeding to pour a little bit of it into his free hand. Once the vial was down, he rubbed his hands together to make a nice lather, and then ran his fingers through her hair like a large-toothed, golden-furred furry comb.

Fay said nothing, instead just standing there and letting the vulpine work his magic, the syrup-like shampoo washing through her undyed hair before being lathered and worked in by her dream masseuse. Eventually, he finished with that particular liquid, and let Fay rinse the remnants out of her hair before he pulled up the two fruits.

"Which would you like on you and which in you?" asked Fox with a teasing grin at the side of his muzzle. Fay giggled, and pointed to the guava.

"You can wash me with that, thanks," she said with a smile. "And I'll take that," she added, taking the other, much more exotic fleshy fruit from Fox's left hand, unpeeling the thick but easy-to-remove skin as Fox ground the other fruit in his hands to a paste. As Fay took her first bite, Fox slid his hands over her back, drenched in the pulp of the fruit and worked it into her shoulder blades. Even above the soft crash of the waterfall, Fay could hear his deep inhalation.

"Does something smell nice, Fox?" she asked teasingly, causing the vulpine to lean forward and begin nibbling at her ear, provoking a little squeak from her.

"It certainly does…" he muttered huskily, running his fruit-soaked hands down her back, squeezing her sides, tickling her belly… and then slapping her face.

* * *

"Fay?" The white dog sat up suddenly from where she'd been sitting in the shower rooms, on one of the little plastic benches that could be used to lie down on or sit on whilst the showers were on. Lucy Hare was leaning over her, a mix of amusement and concern on her face. Fay rubbed the last vestiges of the dream world out of her head, and blushed profusely as Lucy began to giggle.

"Was I making a fool of myself?" she asked, feeling the shower water evaporate off her fur as she stared down at her feet. Lucy rubbed the back of her head, but decided to be honest.

"You were almost about to roll off the bench - you were moaning Fox's name as well," the lapine confessed, and Fay nearly died. The only relief she could think of that came from this situation was that Miyu wasn't here to watch it. Then she remembered where Miyu was, and the reason for trying to escape to her safe place arose again.

Star Fox and Star Wolf had met at a deep space rendezvous after sending out communiqués to all the potential recruits for the Mercenary Army that Wolf had suggested, with an intention that this be a meeting point to formalise everything. As such, after Peppy's suggestion, Fox had said that he wanted his crew looking the best they could.

This had found a lot of friction with Miyu and Falco, both of whom believed they looked fine as they were, however Fox had managed to convince Falco somehow to go and at least have a shower. Miyu, however, had proved much less compliant and it had taken Lucy and Fay nearly half an hour to convince her it was worth having a shower at least.

Of course, the lynx wasn't making it easy for either of them, and as soon as they reached the teams' bathing chambers, she bolted right for the male showers, and locked herself in her, claiming she was having a shower and that her best friend and equerry didn't need to help out. Both girls had spent some time trying to hammer down the door, but when they heard the unmistakeable sound of towel whips and triumphant yells from both Miyu and Falco, they knew they were fighting a losing battle.

Fay had gone for her usual childhood way of relaxing, sitting on a shower bench, whilst Lucy had simply gone for a long soak in a tub. The upgrade to the Great Fox's bathing arrangements had been one of the first things to be updated after Fay and Miyu signed their contracts, changing it from an all-male area to having a set of two showers and a small tub for the girls as well. It just so happened that Lucy had emerged from her bath before Fay had really embarrassed herself by letting her fantasy involving her captain get too involved.

"Sorry I slapped you," Lucy apologised, blushing a little herself as she sat next to Fay, who waved it away. "I tried just asking your name a few times, shaking you and you only tried to grope me," she added as if to try and make Fay's colour deepen past scarlet, which it nearly failed to do.

"I've never been interrupted by someone when in my safe place," she confessed. "At least, not until it's mostly over." Lucy grinned her slightly buck-toothed grin, settling back into the plastic bench.

"Do you and Fox… have anything official?" Lucy asked, and Fay shook her head. "Unofficial? Illegal? Secret?" the hare pressed on, and the dog squeaked in protest, pushing her off the bench.

"No, nothing except a kiss and a few close moments," she explained earnestly. Lucy tilted her head, causing her ears to droop off to one side.

"Would you like there to be something between you two?" she asked, getting to her feet with a smile at Fay's indignant look. As she'd predicted, this produced another irate look from the mutt, but Fay answered.

"I would, but I don't know how Miyu would feel." Lucy frowned for a moment and then blinked in surprise.

"You two…?" she left the question hanging open for Fay to finish, and she nodded.

"There's some truth to the rumours that were running round the academy. We're good friends. Almost like sisters, perhaps maybe more like lovers is the right term," she sighed, somehow feeling this was much easier to explain than she'd thought it would be. "Miyu's got quite a masculine air around her, it comes from being with her brother and no female influence for quite some years. Not that anyone could blame Amran, but it's how she comes across…"

"I understand," said Lucy, nodding. She'd only been Miyu's assistant for a few days, but already she was beginning to map out what the tufted cat was like, and had she been shown just a sheet with the details of her personality, not genetic maps, she would have said Ms Lynx was a male.

"I think we just sort of… drifted close together and clicked. We were outsiders, the community didn't really want us," she said, almost reassembling her sentences from the time she really planned to explain it to someone. Her parents hadn't minded one bit, believing it was more right for Fay to be happy than to be what society deemed as 'normal'; and Miyu's brother insisted it didn't make either of them the girls - the sisters - that he knew and loved different.

"But since you've both come here, you've been treated as equals, and found yourself boys?" Lucy ventured, and Fay nodded, running a hand through her green hair. She'd dyed it the sulphur-green recently, reasoning if she ever had to do another surface landing, it could be some sort of camouflage.

"Fox is just so sweet, and caring," she sighed, blushing only a little as Lucy nodded, bringing herself back from the dreamy-eyed staring into middle space that lasted for about a second or two. "And I think Miyu finds Falco's tough, funny and a real equal for her." Lucy's ears twitched a little, and she smiled.

"More than a match for her, if I'm hearing what I think I'm hearing," Fay sighed and placed her head in her hands.

"I've had enough of trying to sort her out for one day," she eventually decided after staying like that for a moment. "I'm going to get dressed and meet Fox up on the deck, see who decided to help us out," she decided, stepping into the fur-dryer and letting the heated air circulate around her body. Lucy took her turn in afterwards, but by the time the two girls had finally exited the wash rooms in clean clothes, with hair brushed nicely and any makeup applied neatly, all the mercenaries that had opted to join them had arrived.

* * *

"Six?" squawked Falco indignantly as he was told the news. "Are you seriously telling me that along with Star Puppies over there, we have another six troops, only four of whom have ships?" Wolf bit back a growl at Falco's degradation of his team name, but he had to admit, the replies hadn't gone exactly as planned. Many had turned out to be dead when he tried to contact them, some had laughed off his prospect of work without pay, and a few had refused to help defend Corneria.

"You'd rather it was just us?" he shot back, yellowed teeth bared somewhat. Falco's beak curled in a nasty snarl as he glanced over at a black and cream-coloured cat, and then back at the lupine.

"We haven't even doubled our numbers," he said, evading the question. "Two from you, seven from us, maybe another few if we can dredge up assistance from old friends on 'neria, plus another six? Huge improvement, cyclops," he muttered. Wolf reached out a hand to strangle the cocky bird, but a tap on his back from his single team-mate reminded him that this was not the place, particularly not with the orange cat staring at them like that.

Falco's gaze shifted across to where both members of Star Wolf were staring, and he had to suppress a little shiver himself. He was looking at a ginger and white tom-cat with black stripes only just slicing across his body, not quite tiger-like but close. Relatively ordinary perhaps, until one considered that he hadn't said a single word throughout the whole introduction process, but had simply stared at the various members of the mercenary 'army' that Wolf had forged with his bright red, fiery eyes.

This was the pit-fighter known as Condemned, one so vicious and effective that the illegal arenas of the more backwater areas of the planets which held the fights between slaves to the death had thrown him out to pursue a career in killing for money. He never worked for himself, always as a weapon for another, and had come along as the companion of another of the hired swords.

_"Literally,"_ thought Falco, looking at Condemned's choice of weapon - not a gun or any sort of projectile weapon, but a sword about four foot long that was studded with rubies down its' length up to the golden hilt , wrapped in strips of torn leather to form an effective grip for the cat to swing it.

He was dressed in clothes that should typically be elaborate, but somehow looked simple on him - a blue tunic that did itself up at the chest with wooden toggles, and a pair of matching sky-blue trousers with golden thread trim around the bottoms and waist. He was barefoot; the whole effect of him setting him off as a complete opposite to the other cat who'd accompanied him.

The panther gave his name as Alfonso De La Rosa, but all present had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't really. Whatever it was, there was plenty else that irritated the other mercenaries - his accent, clothes and jewellery all marked him out as one of the high upper class who had most likely grown up for some of his life with other mixed accents around him and instead had been left with the posh Zonessian, which ground on the street fighters' nerves - those being Wolf, Falco and Miyu.

Even worse for the latter was that he seemed to consider himself quite the ladies' cat, and would keep dropping not-too-subtle hints about it in conversation. However, when asked to go, Condemned had spoken out that he was worth having around to fight a war, which as a matter of fact they were doing. Fox had agreed, and De La Rosa stayed.

Much more pleasantly accepted had been the team of Glen McEnroe, a blue-hued cat with a smiley, gregarious manner who denied that he was the captain, though both his wingmen seemed to look to him for guidance. Those were a rat who called himself Sparks, stating that he 'had a name, but couldn't pronounce it'. He was currently talking with Slippy back down in the hangars, looking over the craft that both Star Fox and Glen's crew had brought in with them.

Talking to Leon quietly in Reptilian Slavish was a bulky crocodile who was recognised by Fox, Falco and Peppy as having been a Venomian captain during the last Lylat War. However, Glen had vouched for Caiman's promise that he was to remain neutral throughout the whole battle, despite him being born on a planet that was Corneria's chief enemy.

Glen himself was talking to the final mercenary to arrive, much to Falco's surprise - Katherine Monroe. She was dressed almost exactly the same as the last time they'd met, except the new Katt was wearing a little more jewellery than before - a pair of earrings and some glittery bangles on her wrists. Obviously she'd managed to make some sort of money out of her jobs in the war.

After a short pause, Peppy and Lucy entered with their arms laden full of sandwiches, crisps and other refreshments, which were eagerly dug into by the assorted mercenaries, with the exception of Condemned, who looked rather wary of the food.

"Here, it's just a bit of meat inside some bread with some vegetables," offered Fox, feeling the host's wariness about care for their guests. The cat stared at the sandwich for a few long minutes before nodding his thanks and taking it from Fox's hand, taking a big bite out of it, letting a smile crawl across his face.

"This is the meat of a Bloodlancer?" he asked, lifting the half-eaten sandwich to reveal the chewed through slices of deep red meat. Fox raised an eyebrow at the mention of an unfamiliar name, and Condemned elaborated. "It is a creature about so high, with four tusks and spines down its' back…" he said, making hand gestures to explain, at which Fox clicked.

"You mean a Sangspear?" he asked, referring to the violent boar-like creatures hunted for their meat in more rural areas of the civilized planets. Condemned frowned a little, but nodded in thought.

"I suppose it must be," he said, and Fox noted that his accent was unlike any he'd encountered before -perhaps he was from one of the outer fringe planets. When Fox asked him what was his homeworld though, the cat's mouth tightened. "Is it relevant?" he asked, to a shaken head. "Then I do not want to talk about it." That sounded pretty definitive to the mercenary captain, and he decided to leave the cat to enjoy his food.

"We're going to need a reminder as to why you asked him to join," Falco was saying to Wolf as Fox approached the pair, and he didn't need to be a psychic to recognise that the red-eyed cat was the topic.

"I'm pretty sure he'll give us one sooner or later," McCloud said supportively, provoking an arched eyebrow from the bird. Wolf gave a momentary grin, before looking towards the assembled mercenaries and gave a loud whistle, in order to attract everyone's attention. Fourteen pairs of eyes looked over to the lupine, Slippy and Sparks the rat having returned from the hangars.

"Technically, this isn't my ship, but I'm going to say thanks for arriving anyway," he began, to a couple of grins from the audience. "Obviously, if we're going to take the fight to this swan bitch, I would maybe have preferred some heavier-duty support, but I think we've got a pretty good assorted team here."

"Hear, hear," said Glen, a grin on his face, a chant that was taken up by all the members of his crew, and with a giggle, Katt. Falco seemed to smile as he watched the pink feline send a look over in Glen's direction - this was pretty much the first time ever she hadn't been all over him like an affectionate tablecloth the second she got in the doors of the ship, and Falco was grateful for it.

"If I can, may we go over exactly what ships we're able to bring to bear?" he asked, looking pointedly first at Fox.

"Four Arspace Arwing A99s with modifications from Phoenix Enterprises, and two Arspace Guardian bombers," Fox rattled off clearly, sure that Peppy or Slippy would probably be able to even give the serial numbers should they so want, though unlikely that Wolf would be interested. A look at McEnroe requested stats, but the blue cat looked to his technician for the details.

"One Auditech Adaptec FV-8, interceptor, an older-spec Guardian and one I've built from the ground up," he said in his high drawl, a note of pride coming in at the end.

"The reliability of that one?" asked Leon dismissively, obviously the idea of a home-grown craft at odds with his love of sleek, finely-tuned craft. Slippy piped up, something that Fox had to commend him to do - he hadn't particularly expected the frog to stand up to the rather haunting chameleon, but stand up he did.

"I think it's a solid job, it should withstand everything except a plasma cannon hit," he said, resulting in a grin from Sparks. Leon flickered his curled tail a little, and looked to his reptilian friend with a look that asked for confirmation from someone who'd seen it fly,

"It lacks power, but it runs smoothly," Caiman confirmed, and Sparks' smile widened, his eyes glittering behind his dark glasses. The Star Wolf member nodded grudgingly, and shut up for the time being.

"And our home craft was a cargo ship that Sparks did up as well - it's pretty much a match for Storms and the under," added Glen, referring to one of the rankings ships were usually given. The rankings went from largest to smallest: Juggernauts, Dreadnoughts, Corvettes (which the Great Fox was), Dominators (The Wolfpack, Wolf's ship was one of these), Vipers, Harbringers, Predators or Reapers, Storms, Twisters, Banshees, Valkyries (which included Arwings, Wolfens and Glen's FV-8), Amazons and Howlers.

"Can you make it ready for anything bigger?" Wolf asked with a raised eyebrow, and after a nod from Sparks, he continued. "Then make it so. We may need to take it with us to the fight." He then turned to Katt. "And you've got…?"

"The Catspaw," she replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "A Venomian Banshee-class Lance-IV painted pink with a couple of extra thrusters and missile pods," she added with a fanged grin. Miyu and Glen were nodding appreciatively, but Wolf looked less than amused.

"Fat load of use for stealth, if we need it," he grumbled. "Leon, does your craft have the adaptive stuff installed yet?" he asked his friend. The chameleon shook his head.

"They said they couldn't install it back at Sargasso," he said with a growl, which was mimicked by Wolf.

"Right. We have three Wolfens available, one in slightly shabby condition though. Cat, what do you have?" he asked, jabbing a finger at De La Rosa.

"Nothing at the moment. I have a McLaren MP8/10 I can use back on Corneria, but I'm more proficient with a Guardian," he confessed, to several whistles of approval.

"I'll take the Macca!" burst out Miyu, her eyes glistening with anticipation, her cry taken up by Fox, Falco, Caiman and even Sparks. McLaren was one of the oldest crews currently working in the starship construction industry - primarily they were a racing team, but sometimes their old race ships found their way to the public's hands, as it had the rich panther it seemed.

"Weaponry?" asked Wolf dismissively, though none who'd been watching him could have failed to notice the glint in his eye when the ship had been named. The black cat shrugged.

"Nada," he confessed. "Do you think one of you two could change that?" he asked, his muzzle pointed in the direction of Sparks and Slippy, both of whom nodded eagerly. He nodded, and then turned back to Wolf. "Once it's tuned, I suppose whoever can give me a Guardian in exchange can use it." Fox laughed out loud as Peppy restrained himself from snapping his arm up, and so Caiman was first. After a brief confirmation of both parties, Wolf turned his attention to the last of the group.

"And you?" asked Wolf, pointing at Condemned, who swallowed the last of his sandwich with a gulp, and shook his head.

"I don't know how to fly the metal birds," he said calmly, to the dumbstruck looks all round. Fox's suspicions about the orange-red cat being from one of the outer rim worlds, where technology was scarce, and even if available, it was only for the rich, became more founded, but it was the last thing on Wolf's mind.

"What exactly do you expect to be able to do if you can't fly?" he asked acidly. The feline stared back at him with flickering eyes, completely unblinking.

"I expect to be able to kill," he said quietly, his hand straying towards his sword hilt. "Surely there is some way of getting inside another bird, as I am in this one now. When in there, I will fight my way. Perhaps it is easier for you to fight the way you do - in your birds, but I have learnt my way on foot," he said plainly, resulting in a deathly silence that covered the room. Wolf continued the staring match with the cat for a minute or two, before Fox broke the silence.

"We'll try and keep you in reserve for drop troop work ," he said, to a nod from the cat, but no more words. "If necessary, he can ride in my Arwing," he defended, and Wolf gave his old nemesis a hard look.

"Fine; your loss, McCloud," he said dismissively. "So that's… sixteen ships, including the mother ships, and we have how many pilots again?" he said, changing the subject. Fay was the first to reply with the number.

"Seven from us, eight if you count ROB being able to operate the Great Fox, three from Glen's side, two from you, De La Rosa, and Katt," she said, ticking them off on her fingers. She was about to give a final total when Leon cut her off.

"We have a robot that can operate the WolfPack for us if we wish," he said, and Fay nodded, ticking off another finger. "That's sixteen," Leon said coldly, glaring at Fay as if she were being deliberately obvious to be rude to him, like treating him as a slow child. The white dog retreated a little, as Wolf grinned, and clapped his hands.

"Then this, ladies and gentlemen, is our army that's going to save Corneria!" he said proudly, and one by one, fists were punched into the air with smiles on their owners' faces.

"Lets' give Cyrene Swan one hell of a headache she won't forget easily."


	13. Chapter 11

Sparks' name seemed appropriate now that those outside his original team had seen how he handled electrical goods - the rat had been trying to link up a new processor to Slippy's own personal data cogitator for about half an hour now, and only succeeded in giving himself a rather frightening new hairdo. Despite the mutual friendship that seemed to be between the two, the frog had eventually suggested that the normal data banks would be enough to pull up the details on where Cyrene's base of operations was supposed to be.

The data Slippy had was mostly the snippets picked up from talk and musings, along with predicted flight patterns of ships known to be under her service and the clues that Ben, Linda and Darren had provided, but there was a pretty sure area of space that Slippy was sure the evidence pointed towards. As soon as the name appeared on the screen though, the entirety of Glen's team took in a sudden breath.

"Mama…" whispered Sparks, his eyes bugging out so they were actually momentarily visible behind the dark sunglasses he was forever sporting. Glen's face had gone a paler shade of blue, and Caiman was kissing his knuckles, whispering something that sounded very much like 'Tiamet' under his breath. Falco was familiar from the time he'd worked with Leon that the name was a pretty rarely used one, and only one in times of great distress. It was him who asked the question everyone had on their minds.

"What's so scary about that sector?" Glen turned to the bird with wide eyes, and motioned for Slippy to click a few more keys. Information about the area scrolled across the screen, and it wasn't until the 'also known as' line scrolled onto the screen that other members of the group started mimicking the reactions of the three-man crew.

"No fragging way!" Katt whispered. "Not the Ship Graves!" By now, everyone except the youngest two present - Fay and Miyu - were looking pretty agitated at this discovery of Slippy's. Probably not wanting to sound like an idiot in front of everyone else, as soon as Wolf and Caiman got into shouting matches about the myths of the mysterious area of space, Miyu leant across and tapped Falco's shoulder.

"What're the Ship Graves?" she asked quietly. Falco shook his head, his beak twisted into a distasteful frown.

"That area of space attracts destroyed ships - the one planet there is really magnetic, so abandoned, drifting ships get sucked towards it. That's true enough, but the stories loads of people come back with say that some of the wrecks come to life and start attacking intruders," the bird muttered, and Miyu snorted.

"You don't seriously believe that, do you?" the lynx asked, her muzzle in a grin. Falco shook his head, but side-nodded in thought.

"It hasn't got much to go on, yeah… but there is footage of the turrets of old ships turning to attack visiting craft. Could be just the work of a defence mechanism, but there's another video…" his voice tailed off, and he lowered it, not that he could easily be overheard over Leon and Caiman's heated argument in their native language. Fox was obviously filling Fay in on the details as Slippy was showing his plottings and calculations to Sparks.

"Yeah?" asked the tufted feline, an eyebrow quirked in interest.

"Were you awake when you had the lessons on 'The Greatest Craft That There Ever Were'?" the bird asked, his attitude obviously hinting he wasn't too impressed with the focus of the lesson. Miyu shook her head - it was mostly about the most magnificently built cruisers instead of the best fighters, and she'd quickly resorted to doodling on a side of her data slate.

"Well, we were asking about mythical craft once in a lesson, and the mention of the '_Quetzalcoatl_' came up," he said, seeing if that triggered anything in the lynx's mind. From the blink she gave, it certainly looked like she was familiar with the name.

"It exists?" she said with some shock. Falco shrugged, but nodded towards the screen that was still scrolling information.

"There's a fuzzy video that has a spooky similarity to the description of it," the blue falcon admitted. "And it's supposed to be there. So it's not proven, but it's one of those space myths that we don't take as a complete lie - like Void Whales," he said, and Miyu took in a breath through her teeth. That was a subject that she didn't particularly like the idea of talking about after the stories Amran had told her when she was a kid. Void Whales were the only bedtime story that gave her nightmares.

"So what's the plan?" she eventually asked out loud, breaking the various word-sparring contests between the various mercenaries. "Are we gonna head for this bit and go straight in?" The idea was ludicrously stupid, but it at least stopped the bickering for a moment.

"I don't actually have a plotted line for us to follow," Slippy admitted, flushing a bit. "That's why I suggest we try and rip out the relevant information from one of Cyrene's cruisers." The frog was perhaps the most diminutive of the group, but his suggestion provoked a cheer from most of the mercenaries present, particularly Wolf and Falco.

"I've got a battle plan made up, but if anyone's got any suggestions, I'll take them at the end," Peppy interjected, bringing forward a data stick, inserting it in the side of Slippy's computer and bringing up a holographic image of a cruiser in front of Glen's chest, the cat stepping back to give some room to the plan. Even with a few paces back, he was treated to the multicoloured images of fighter craft buzzing around his head as Lucy explained the colour code.

"We're going to be going by code names on this mission, to avoid radio detection," she explained, gesturing to the brightly coloured forms that were occasionally passing through Glen's body, much to Katt's amusement. "Wolf, you're Silver One. Fox, Gold One…"

* * *

The_ Janissary_ was the ship chosen to attack by the data crunchers on the Great Fox, and though Sparks was eagerly offering to be part of the data extraction team, he had been overruled almost instantly by everyone else. Slippy was to go down, much to the amphibian's disappointment, with Condemned, Fox and Miyu as a support squad. The latter two would be holding the others in their Arwing cockpits, and enter as soon as an entry point was made. Miyu was a little unhappy at not getting the chance to fly, but the defense of the data transfer ships mission needed precision turning, something the lynx wasn't so good at.

_"At least you'll be definitely killing something,"_ soothed Falco over the comm.-link, and Miyu stuck her tongue out at him, though grinning as the private connection severed. Innuendo jokes would have to wait until later, given Miyu had a passenger in the back of her blue and silver Arwing.

"This is Purple-One to Gold-One, what's the ETA on the rest of the team being able to negate the defences?" she asked, checking the minimised icons on the side of her screen as she fell into position alongside Fox. Rather than all the images being the same size, the Arwings had been programmed to only have speaking pilots shown normal size, otherwise they were minimised. Of the rest of the mercenary army, five screens were blank - Slippy's, Leon's (who was observing electrical silence as part of a stealth attack), Peppy's (who was on board the Great Fox ready to help with the data upload), De La Rosa's and Caiman's (both of whom were on Corneria, retrieving De La Rosa's MP8/10). The icons were also arranged in order of the attack squadrons that had been sorted out from the participants. Fay and Wolf were on one row, beneath them Falco and Sparks, and below them Glen and Katt. The latter felines' faces were frozen on their screens, indicating they were still transmitting, but on a private line to another.

_"Wish I had could have some form of conversation with tiger back there," _thought Miyu grimly, her head flicking back to look at her passenger. For someone who obviously hadn't much of an idea about modern-day Lylatian systems, Condemned was doing a sterling job of keeping himself composed, though Miyu would have preferred if he wasn't carrying his sword in his hands.

_"Silver-One and White-One are reporting their part of the ship is almost sufficiently crippled for our moves," _Fox replied. _"Silver-Two and Blue-One are encountering stiff resistance though, and Blue-Two and Pink-One aren't responding at the moment."_ The lynx smirked, pretty sure that Katt and Glen were simply having a kill competition and not bothering the others rather than spouting endless lovey-dovey dribble.

_"Negative that, Gold-One,"_ Falco chimed in over the system, his beak set firm and his eyes expressionless. From his small icon, Sparks was looking somewhat scared. _"Green-One's just joined us." _Unwilling to miss what had made the rat so frightened, Miyu launched a little ahead of Fox, preparing to do a fast loop around Falco and Sparks' battle zone. She barely caught the dance of a dimly-coloured, nearly unreflective ship as it flipped over another craft, the bladed wings ripping it asunder.

"That has precision that scares me," said a quiet voice from Miyu's side, and she flicked round to see that the tom had followed her gaze. She nodded in silence, twisting the controls to return to Fox's flank. She could see Leon dispatching more and more of the Midgets that were swarming to try and overwhelm the vehicles simply by barrel-rolling through them. There were enough blades on the wings to easily eviscerate the tiny ships, and sanguine clouds of frozen blood blossomed in the chameleon's wake.

_"Just focus on our mission,"_ Fox reminded the lynx over the communications array, but the look on his face was similar to the one over Miyu's face - a mix of revulsion and fear. She nodded, glancing back to look at the cat's face. The ginger tom wasn't giving anything away, his eyes still burned with the same orange flame they'd always seemed to. He had at least suited up for this mission, but in his own sort of plate metal - it was surprisingly light, to the team's surprise, but strong enough to stop most solid projectiles. That was good at least - laser weapons weren't as awful to be hit by, given that they just cauterised the wound as it went through. Projectiles actually made you bleed.

"Rodger that, captain," replied Miyu, her voice a little more serious. "Who are we falling in with?"

_"Silver-One and White-One,"_ Fox replied, referring to Wolf and Fay. _"They've got the best clearance."_ With that, the first of the two white-and-blue Arwings show away to sunward, sweeping around to allow the Wolfen to flank it into the bay they'd freed up. Fay's Arwing swooped to side up with Miyu's craft, and the two girls gave each other a friendly wave through their cockpits.

"Get yourself ready, Red," Miyu said, using the first part of Condemned's code name (Red-One) for simple short hand purposes rather than his given full name, thought he lynx had a nagging feeling that he was hiding something from her. The black cat, De La Rosa too.

"Yes, Purple," replied the cat, and Miyu flicked her head to see whether or not he was having a joke. His face seemed serious though, and Miyu assumed he was going to refer to her by her colour as well. She loosened her blasters in their holsters, watching as the cat drew his sword, weighting it in his hand and then kissing the blade. Unlike some of the rituals the outer rim planets' inhabitants performed, this was one that Miyu shared, and taking the time to pilot with one hand, let her muzzle brush the tops of the pistols.

_"Good luck, Mi… Purple-One,"_ Fay transmitted, covering up her half-mistake, which caused Wolf to shoot her a dirty look from his screen. However, his and Fox's screens froze for a second or so, indicating a private line. When they emerged, Fox's face was a little more hard-set, and Wolf's was in a grin - but he didn't continue with his berating of Fay.

_"Come on, Purple-One. We've got an opening,"_ he said sharply, banking away from the scissor-shaped Wolfen and shooting for an opened dock with his blasters. Not wanting to disappoint her captain, and give O'Donnell more reasons to be scornful of team Star Fox, the lynx gunned her plasma drives as well, the force blast blossoming from her exhausts as she powered after the first white and blue craft. As Fox had said, there was a open star dock on the sunward side of the ship, open but with the magnetic barriers to prevent the dock workers from suffering from large amounts of radiation burns in place. These could also seal out vacuum space on some ships, and from Slippy's readings before the attack, this craft looked as though it had them in spades.

"Where in Lylat is she getting this stuff from?" she murmured, checking her speed counter as she prepared to hit the air brakes once she got into the port, where there was circulatory air. "Check yourself, Red - this could hurt a lot," she called back, and obediently, Condemned buckled himself into his chair, his fiery gaze almost seeming to intensify as they got closer to impact.

The Arwings hit the magnetic membrane at well over five hundred kilometres per hour, air brakes fully deployed, and slowed to nothing within only about half a kilometre. It was a true testament to the sheer strength of the straps that held them in place that the four mercenaries didn't end up as unpleasant stains on the front of their respective craft. Instead, the three Star Fox members were simply nursing serious winding and recovering from the G-forces, while Condemned had already unbelted himself, hit the hatch release on Miyu's craft and leapt out. Slippy was the first of the rest to recover, being an amphibian he had a better low air tolerance, and analysed the situation in the docking bay. No ships - Fay and Wolf had dealt with that, but personnel? Only one way to tell.

Taking a few choice grenades into his hands, and resisting the urge to juggle them, Slippy pressed the hatch release on Fox's Arwing, gingerly looking over the top to see if there was any burst of fire. None came.

The frog scrambled out onto the wing frame, silently apologising to a groggy Fox for using his head as a foothold, looking round in some surprise. The deck hands were all unarmed by the looks of things - no weapons were obviously in sight near them, though a couple were near very weapon-like tools. All the Janissary's deck hands were either down but breathing, or coughing up copious amounts of pained breaths. The only death was a cat who had a blaster in his hand, still clutched there despite death.

"What's happening, Slipster?" asked Fox, rubbing his tousled headfur as he scrambled out to join Slippy outside the cockpit.

"R…r…red One looks like he's dealt with most of the crew. He's only incapicated the mechanics… but…." he pointed to the dead guard, and Fox nodded grimly. To be honest, the only difference between what the cat had done, and what he and Miyu would have done in the same situation would have been to use a blaster rather than an over-sized sword.

"Good for him," said the vulpine, checking his laser rifle before hopping out of the cockpit, gesturing for the frog to follow him. Slippy had his computing systems attached to his back, but a couple of grenades were clipped to his sides just in case. Both men were dressed in full flight suit get-up, not the casual stuff they'd been wearing in their craft since the end of the Lylat War, Fox in his green and red and Slippy in yellow. The lynx jogging over to rendezvous with them was wearing her own outfit for the very first time as well, and was obviously having a bit of a problem getting used to it.

"Feels kind of restrictive," she said, swinging her arms against the purple and red material, a blaster clutched in each hand, the same battle arrangement she'd had when escaping from Cyrene's ship.

"You'll get used to it," said Slippy helpfully, to which Fox nodded with a wink. Miyu raised an eyebrow and glanced at her side, where the suit clung somewhat to her body.

"You already seem used to it," she said to her captain, sticking her tongue out at him playfully and bounding off towards the doors towards the rest of the ship. "How do we know where we're going?"

"Probably best to follow the trail of carnage left by Red," Fox suggested, stepping over the door threshold and looking at the various bodies of guards and menials scattered around the place. Again, the ones who weren't holding guns were simply groaning or still but breathing, with the weapon-toting guards very obviously dead. Slippy was going pale looking at the sight, probably because he was used to at least seeing cauterised wounds from laser shots than actual blood pools around the place, but McCloud had to admire the pit-fighter's ability, and judgement as well.

"Sword-boy knows where he's going?" Miyu asked, gingerly stepping over a guard's body and taking care to step on the chest of a loudly swearing electrician. Slippy nodded, trying to look at something other than the floor, walls or in one extreme case, the ceiling.

"I gave him a compass watch. A holographic arrow will be telling him where he needs to go, though how he gets there is up to him." Fox nodded, looking at his own, which was pretty much indicating the same direction as Condemned's path.

"We might not have to use these if we're lucky, so keep your safeties on so we don't have any nasty accidents," Fox ordered, and he heard the clicks of Miyu's blasters' safety switches being flicked. The lynx kept the weapons in her hands however, and she and Fox would take standard positions whenever coming to a crossroads - each one against the wall and leaping out to surprise anyone waiting there. Nobody was, which made Fox suggest that they'd gone to chase Condemned as he made his way up the corridors.

"Lets' hope he can deal with that, then," murmured Miyu. She couldn't have timed it better - almost instantly, from up ahead the rattle of Gatling Guns sounded along with the fizzle of laser weapons and barked orders from sergeants. The three looked at each other, and got to action immediately.

Slippy lobbed a flash-bang grenade towards the sound of the noise - surprisingly for his stature, the frog had been a decent pitcher when at the Academy sports events, which explained his proficiency with round things that went 'boom'. The three mercenaries avoided their eyes and the two mammals folded in their ears to ignore the ringing aftershocks.

Three seconds after the initial throw, the members of Star Fox turned about, Miyu and Fox with the safeties off their weapons, and sprinted forward to open fire. Stunned from the flash-bang before, the guards had only milliseconds to react before McCloud and Lynx released a hail of laser blasts in their direction. Miyu's aim was simply to take down as many of the guards as possible, but Fox's rifle work was removing the Gatling Gun users. As soon as the fire started back at the newcomers, all three were treated to Condemned managing to get back up to speed.

Despite several wounds in his chest and arms, his clothes ruined from incoming fire and burn patches on his body in several places, the cat still had the ever-present fire in his eyes, and his sword swung in quick, wide arcs that finished with anyone Fox and Miyu had left alive. Once the heavy weapon crews seemed to be dealt with, the cat grinned at the fox and lynx, sword lifted triumphantly; just before his knees gave way and he fell forward, coming to land face down on the tread plate.

"Red!" yelled Miyu, sprinting towards the fallen tom along with Fox, who was quickly radioing the rest of the Army.

"Silver-One, White-One, we need you here. Man down."

* * *

A quick flick of the controls sent another Midget catapulted off into the void in half. Terrified eyes scanned out of the cockpits of the rest of the craft's squadron to try and see the ship that was appearing on their radars, but moved too fast to be tracked, and couldn't be seen easily with the naked eye. Leon Powalski's mouth twitched in a smirk, and a strip of yellow ran down his body as the flash of emotion rushed through his system. Not that anyone would see - his cockpit was black smoked vaccuum-glass, and had an EM-web inside to avoid any seeker missiles heading for his body.

_"This is Silver-One to Blue-One and Silver-Two. Start covering sectors Angel to Charity - we're breaking off,"_ came his superior's voice over the radio, and after a short burst of static, during which Leon's flying sent another Midget shorn in half crashing to the body of the Janissary.

_"Copy that, Silver-One,"_ came the voice of Lombardi, emotionless as he always kept it when dealing with unfriendly allies. _"Green-One, you have sectors Demagogue and Enlighten covered - I'll leave you to do what you do best,"_ the falcon continued, addressing the chameleon.

"I don't think you really do," whispered the reptile, low enough to only be heard as a hiss through the bird's speakers. Leon's fingers twitched the roller-balls he used as controls for his Wolfen's wing settings and plasma drives, and his scissor-shaped craft flung itself into a steep dive, lashing through the swarm of tiny craft that Cyrene Swan kept her main ships staffed with, his knife-like ship lacerating another three. Three more souls for Tiamet, thought the reptile idly.

Leon Powalski liked killing. It was perfectly as simple as that - he just resurrected the name of an ancient black goddess of his native Titania's religions as a way of justifying what he did. Otherwise, his normal green colour just went to black if he did the killing for himself. On the ground, it was like a rhythm he could find, knives in each hand, raising and lowering his arms like the sensuous dance of a temple priestess; and his ship was designed to reflect this. Titanium compound blades adorned his wings and nose, and the top speed had been sacrificed for mobility, even with limited acceleration. Leon never had any power up on his shields or weapons if he could help it, just on his ship engines - he never needed that sort of protection if he wasn't being hunted by high-tech ships that could see through his ship's camo-spines.

Not something legal in any way, but something the reptile loved, camo-spines were a series of needle-like additions to the hull of his craft that were one half matt-black, the other half glossy chrome. These could be switched round depending on whether the user was fighting in dark of bright conditions, not nearly what Leon especially wanted (adapted camouflage that changed to whatever was wanted), but it was good enough for stealth attacks on these dropouts flying the Midgets. Another crimson spray of crystals was kicked out into space as Leon's barrel-roll send his slicing through the cockpit of another. Once the manoeuvre was executed though, a flashing box on his screen told him he was being contacted. It was a red and orange rim, indicating it was a member of the side he was fighting now, but who wanted to speak.

_"Impressive,"_ said the cool voice as Leon switched colours to black to match his cockpit so he couldn't be identified, and allowed the intruder onto his private channel._ "Too easy for you, Leon?"_ she asked idly, hoping to get a view of the chameleon she was speaking to by letting him flash orange. Nothing happened.

"You're watching?" asked the emotionless voice from the depths of the cockpit, appearing as nothing but a black pit with a few diodes of light for key switches on the view screen of the transmitter. She smiled, deciding to answer his question - at least it was somewhat pertinent.

_"I have my ways of watching my craft. Not, of course that I'm going to let you know until I'm sure I can trust you."_ Leon smirked within the cabin, but refused to let his colour change.

"Why, of all things, would I be someone you could trust, Lady Swan?" On the other end of the line, Cyrene raised en eyebrow, her wings folded across the front of her admiral's uniform as she regarded the shadows where Leon was likely to be, hoping he'd elaborate. "Please, Miss Swan. Your base of operations is in the Ship Graves - you're certainly likely to have scavenged some form of high-tech radio penetrating device from one of the ships there; and the code names are surprisingly infantile on this craft. My son could work them out, and he's barely out the egg," the chameleon continued, giving into his mirth and letting a streak of yellow-orange pass down his body, making him have the appearance of a salamander for a short moment.

_"Well, for a start, I could easily have burst in on any conversation I would have liked, but I chose yours. Surely that indicates I have something important to say to you?"_

"It doesn't mean I can trust you," he replied tersely to the swan's offer, oblivious to her batting of eyes.

_"True, but then you've done work for less trustworthy people than I. At least I'm someone whose motives are clear, if methods are not,"_ Cyrene offered, taking a sip of a glass of wine from a crystal goblet on a side table.

"You have work for me?" Leon said, a smile creasing his mouth. "Betrayal? Sabotage? My price is high…" To his surprise, Cyrene shook her head, tipping the rest of the ruby liquid down her beak and staring into where she knew his form to be now, her dazzling blue eyes like steel.

_"Neither of your suggestions. It has no true tactical value, just settling a little personal grudge. I'll pay what you choose for the job,"_ she added, and Leon flashed bright green, returning to his normal colour for a while to stare aghast at Cyrene. Any mercenary, gun for hire or assassin that was offered whatever price they wanted did not turn down those jobs. It was a series of words that clicked within some ancient freelancer's gene in the back of the skull. This was usually because the people who offered it had everything to give; and were usually desperate, or deadly serious about what they wanted done.

"Adaptive camouflage?" Leon asked almost by reflex, gesturing with a three-fingered hand to his ship, before replacing it on the roller-ball of a control. He'd shot away to hide behind a piece of the _Janissary_ that had been ripped off by an over-enthusiastic shot from Sparks' custom ship and was currently revolving slowly in the void.

_"Certainly. And perhaps more, if you decide to come and visit me, I have a man who has plans for such a ship. He calls it the Rainbow Wing__,"_ Cyrene said, a satisfied smile creeping onto her long beak. Leon glowed yellow as he smiled widely, his eyes focussed on the avian before him.

"What needs to be done?" he asked eagerly. His fingers started twitching, a reflex that Leon had over many years, his hands needed to be doing something, whether it was as simple as twirling a pen or tobacco-stick through his fingers or one of his custom knives; his long, spindly digits needed to do something when he was anticipated.

_"Fox's bitch,"_ said Cyrene bluntly, snapping the stem of the goblet she was holding for effect, her long neck tilting her head to the side to look at the reptile questioningly, as if it needed to be clarified further.

"Within the week," promised Leon with a glimmer in the dots of his revolving eyes, still focussed on the enemy of the army he had his ties to. From what he'd seen of her, Spaniel would be a cakewalk of a kill. Any of his favourite methods, from quick to long would work - and if he was lucky, he'd get to hear her squeal and scream for mercy. He loved that - perk of his job. It seemed it would only be a bonus to the water fowl watching him, almost detecting what was going on in his head, and she smiled, nodding as she severed the connection.

_"Green-One! Green-One, you bastard, come in and get off the communicator!"_ Leon's thought pattern was shattered by the interruption over the communiqué, and he flashed red as he composed himself once more, opening the window that was flashing angrily at him to see Katt's face glowering at him.

"Was there a problem, Pink-One?" Leon asked levelly, deciding not to bring up the chat she'd had with Glen for some time as retort for her being huffy about him being occupied.

_"We're returning to the Palette, Green-Two got the data he needed and Red-One is in a stable condition,"_ she replied, her green eyes flickering in irritation. She was referring to return to the two biggest ships for briefing and retreat - in their ridiculous code, the 'Easel' was the target, and the 'Palette' was the base of operations.

"I hear you, Pink-One," replied Leon, levelly once more. "Green-One, over and out." He rested his hands once more on the controls, swinging the Wolfen around to jet towards the Great Fox and Wolfpack, his features set. Inside his mind, however, he was wondering what it would be like to fly the _Rainbow Wing_…


	14. Chapter 12 Part 1

Having bailed out of the rec room during a break between AG-races on the telescreen, Miyu was sneaking down the hallways of the Great Fox towards the infirmary. Having watched the racing ships go nose to nose across the finish line had given her a thrill and she wanted to capitalise on it - only one person on the ship actually had a racing craft, and Caiman wasn't letting go of it at the moment. Perhaps going straight to the MP8/10's owner wouldn't hurt her chances of a test flight…

Alfonso had been staying for the most part with his friend Condemned in the med bay, though he was at least honest enough to admit that he didn't feel comfortable around the street fighters without one of his own to watch his back. It said a lot about exactly how much the mercenaries in the army trusted each other, and Fox wasn't happy about it at all.

Miyu bit her lip a little as she thought about how frustrated her captain had been these last few days. Ever since the successful extraction of data from the Janissary, Sparks and Slippy had been trying to make head or tail of the code that Cyrene was using, occasionally drafting those with language skills in to help sort out foreign languages. Progress was slow, and Fox was getting restless. He'd even chosen to watch the Grand Prix in his own chamber, instead of in the rec room along with most of the rest of the army.

Fay had been doing her best to cheer the fox up, but there wasn't any noticeable improvement from either of them concerning the swan admiral currently giving them a headache. Miyu had been called names too many times in her life to care about how Cyrene was addressing her, but she knew that it was personal for the dog.

She entered the corridor to the med bay, not having met anyone else on the way - those not watching the late-night race were asleep or in their rooms, and so she met little resistance on her way to the bay. The door was closed, but the green light showed that entry was possible if so wanted. Low voices were coming from behind the door which Miyu could identify as the two cats. She pushed the door open slowly, and the voices suddenly became clearer, and made her stop.

"Hello, is that Lading Mental Hospital? We'd like to speak with one of your patients." Miyu recognised Lading as being one of the principle towns of Zoness, though why De La Rosa would be contacting it in here was a mystery to her.

"May I ask who is calling, and who you'd like to speak to?" asked a kind, matronly voice, obviously over the video speaker, and this time it was the red tom who answered - revealing something about himself that the lynx had long expected, and was now answered.

"We would like to talk to Alyssa Strype. Please tell her that it is Panther and Sabre who are calling." Miyu ducked behind one of the green partition curtains to listen in - though she couldn't see the two cats nor their screen, she could hear what was going on.

"Of course! Yes, it's very nice of you gentlemen to call. I'll get Alyssa right away," the voice replied, and Miyu had to stifle a look of disbelief. Condemned and Alfonso - 'gentlemen'? Though she reminded herself that they probably weren't those names any more - unless they were also false pseudonyms, and the two cats had lied to the mental hospital nurse.

"You think she'll be allright?" asked the newly re-christened Panther, and Miyu strained her good ear for Sabre's response.

"She had nothing wrong with her mind. It was a problem with her brain. She was not ill to begin with," came a terse reply, and the black cat took it as a sign to shut up. Eventually, scuffling was heard from the video screen, and the matronly nurse's voice was heard once again.

"Allright boys, here she is. I'll be keeping a nurse in the room with her to look after her, but apart from that, feel free to talk," she said politely, and Miyu raised an eyebrow as the two male cats snorted a little once the matron had disappeared. It was only a second or two before a new voice came on.

"Panther! Sabre! Oh, it's so good to see you two again… what happened to you?" the female voice broke off as its' owner no doubt noticed the state that Sabre was in.

"We can't give you details, well, truth be told we could - but I don't think our employer would like it if we did," Panther said, after a minute or two of the red tom's silence. The female voice replied almost as soon as he had finished speaking, in a concerned but also friendly term.

"Well, I'll trust you to look after yourselves from now on. It looks serious, did you get shot or stabbed?"

"Shot," replied Sabre shortly. "I took them down in the end, but it is difficult when they are at range and I am not. Miyu rolled her eyes, thinking that this wouldn't have happened if Sabre would actually carry a blaster with him. Apparently Slippy was working on something for the cat that wouldn't get in the way of his sword play, but the lynx was still sceptical.

"Well, I'm sure you'll make a good recovery. You were back in the club only about a day after you got the living daylights kicked out of you?" Aha, this was a bit more interesting.

"Nothing could keep me away from the 'Seven Aces' if I could get there," Panther said with a smile, and Miyu noted that he was using the first person. Whenever he spoke to her, Fay, Lucy or Katt, it was always in the third person. A form of respect for his closest friends, perhaps?

"Also, I do not know if it was so much we or the others who were badly hurt," said Sabre smugly. Panther snorted derisively, but the woman they were talking to seemed agree with the red cat.

"Come on boys, both of you almost needed your ears sewn on after that night," the voice insisted, and Miyu stifled a laugh. This woman had a sense of dry humour. "But you were both so brave. I can't thank either of you enough…" Damn, there went the tough outlook with the soppy comment. That was worthy of Fay in her softest, complete with pink ribbons around her ears. Now giving in to the urge to see who was talking, Miyu poked her head around the edge of the curtain she was looking at to get a view of the woman on the vidiscreen.

The first thought was envy - Miyu was looking at a feline girl much more attractive and well formed than she was, and her good ear twitched irritably. However she then noticed that the tigress' whiskers were frayed at the edges, and her cheek fur was ruffled in a rather unattractive way. The final thing was that she had her hands bound - maybe cuffed or tied - round her back, and as stated before, she was in a mental hospital. The lynx found herself out looking at the woman for a little too long, however, and she was spotted by the woman on the screen.

"Hey, who's that over there?" she asked, pointing at the screen. The tufted cat threw herself behind the curtain once more, but a quiet padding of footsteps was enough to make her understand she had been found out, and was being pursued. Not wishing to make any more problems, she stepped out to meat whichever of the cats it was that was coming for her.

"Lynx…" growled the newly re-christened Alfonso De La Rosa as he lowered his slender and light handgun from between her eyes. "You could have knocked."

"I was interested," Miyu said brazenly, looking back at the panther with solid purple eyes. Lynxes as a general rule were small cats, but Miyu and her brother had both fortunately overcome the usual height deficits for the race. Miyu couldn't remember her parents or elder brother's stature, and she reasoned it made no difference anyway.

"Then let her come. Ask questions. Our relationship with Alyssa is not something to be hidden behind locked doors," Sabre murmured, his torso leaning from behind the screen to beckon Miyu and Panther forward. The black cat was there first, and slumped down on the bed down from his friend, looking at the newly arrived woman with some dissatisfaction. The tigress on the video screen however was a little more co-operative.

"Hey there - My name is Alyssa. These boys used to be my personal bodyguards," she explained kindly, settling back into a more comfortable position in the communicator chair. "From the newspapers I've seen, you must be Miyu Lynx. Pleased to meet you."

"The same," she replied, her eyes flickering to the two male cats to watch their faces for an expression of sorts. Sabre still held the stony and unmoving expression he almost always wore when not talking to someone, and Panther was grimacing a little.

"I was a singer and dancer at a nightclub where these two came often - Panther was a customer, Sabre was a guard. There was one night when the crowd got crazy, and tried to beat me to death. Those two threw all the others off me and took me back to my dressing room. They looked after me for about a month after that, before I was sent here by my superiors," the tigress explained, glancing around the room she was in. Miyu tilted her head a little, nodding.

"Sorry I was eavesdropping. I came to ask Alf… Panther if I could take his ship out for a spin sometime," Miyu began, but the black cat cut her off with a scoff.

"The McLaren? No. Panther drives Panther's ship, and also those who Panther trusts with it. Panther doesn't trust Miyu So yet," he said, shooting Miyu a hard look, who returned it for a second until she realised the name he'd used for her.

"How the hell did you find out about my family?" she roared, leaping forward with feral speed to grab the black cat's shoulders, sinking her claws through the thin shirt and flesh of Caruso and resulting in confused yelling from all four members of the current conversation. It was the matron from earlier who quieted the three-way struggle on the Great Fox side of the telecommunications by barking out a 'stop' command harshly as soon as she was called over by Alyssa.

"I think Alyssa had best go now, or perhaps she could talk to Mr Sabre, and Mrs Miyu and Mr Panther can take their conversation elsewhere." The two orange and black striped cats glared at their fellows, who growling in displeasure, left the room. The hare matron was apologised to by Sabre before she left, allowing Sabre and Alyssa to catch up on - something unusual for the former - small talk.

It only took about a minute or so for Miyu to find a secluded and quiet enough place to start having a go at the black cat once more, her face contorted into a snarling hiss of anger. Panther was perhaps a little more prepared this time, but still found himself uncomfortably face to face with the tufted cat, her claws sinking into his neck.

"Am I going to get an answer, or to I have to tear it out of your skull myself?" she hissed maliciously, her fangs bared in front of the panther's golden eyes, which flinched only a little.

"Ms So, you're hardly the only child of embarrassing rich parents - Panther just didn't run away at such a young age so he never heard any of his parents' deals and business associates," he said coolly, but matching Miyu's stare like for like. "The arrow stripe on your forehead is the same as your mother's," he added, coaxing a growl from the lynx.

"I hardly need to know that," she snapped. "And for your information, I didn't run away. They abandoned me and my brother - so we've abandoned them," she said coldly. "Don't you ever use my birth name again, or I'll stick a rifle so far up your ass that…"

"Is there a problem here?" Both cats looked round to see primarily a blaster muzzle pointed in the general direction of Caruso, belonging to a blue-feathered avian. Miyu released her claws from his neck, licking them clean before retracting them into her fingers, and stepping away from the still black cat. Panther's hand had eased away from his own weapon, both hands folded in plain sight of Falco to show he had no weapons on him.

"Not one that should be around for much longer," Miyu said icily, glancing over her shoulder as she stood next to Falco, lowering his arm with a hand of her own about his wrist, though the frosty looks remained. Panther's hackles raised a little, but he didn't show any outward displeasure.

"Alfonso will leave you two together," he said shortly, not revealing his 'true' name to Falco, turning on his heel and striding away towards the infirmary, probably to continue the conversation with Alyssa, and to stem the bleeding from Miyu's claws.

"He'd fragging well better," muttered the falcon, holstering his weapon and then turning to the lynx beside him. "It was on stun. If he was giving you hassle, you've got the headshot in your hands," he said with a smile. A fanged grin was sent back in return.

"Such a gentleman," she purred, running a claw down Falco's cheek. His beak curved into a smile as he let a hand curl around her waist.

"Shall we get back to the races? Käirrönen might be in for the win this time…"

---

The roar of the crowd and scream of the antigravity engines was muted to nothing but dim background static as Fox pored over the data trails that Slippy had recently handed him. Apparently, this was the first coherent piece of data that had been extracted from the Janissary, but it was all still meaningless to the vulpine as he shook his head, scowling at the mocking data-slates. Grand Prix day was usually a day where Fox would forget everything else and enjoy the spectacle along with all the others, but the Cyrene business just wouldn't leave his head. He had to get this woman some way or another, yet there was nothing that was helping. Highlighter wands lay unused by his knees, abandoned as there didn't seem to be any words that made sense at all, let alone relevant phrases.

"Damn her to Sol and back…" he whispered, throwing another slate onto the pile that he had given up on ages ago. The thin wafer of a minicomputer clattered along with the others on a precariously leaning tower that threatened to fall off his bed. He didn't want to bother with the others he had, and yet this was his responsibility as Captain of the ship to help out, and Wolf wasn't one for doing desk jobs - to the point where he threatened to use weapons to deadly effect if he was made to sift through them.

A knock on his door provided a welcome distraction, and he unfolded his tired limbs from his body, shuffling over to the door and letting it slide open. The now familiar sensation of his eyes widening and his ears flushing came back to him as he saw Fay at the door.

"I brought you something to eat," she said, holding out a couple of sandwiches as she entered the room, only briefly glancing around at the scruffiness of the room. Fox smiled, brushing some of the files away to make space for the white dog as she sat down, passing him a plate so he didn't get crumbs onto his bed.

"Fanks," he mumbled through a mouthful of bread and meat paste, swallowing as he caught Fay's sceptical look at him - she'd always liked having good table manners, something drummed into her from when she was a puppy; and though she never enforced them on the members of her mercenary team, particularly when eating alone with someone she tried to at least make sure they didn't crumb everywhere.

"Not getting anywhere?" she asked quietly, picking up the data slates and staring at it for a while, then turning it upside down and trying to make sense of that. Giving up a fair bit earlier than Fox had, the spaniel tossed it onto the pile, which teetered precariously for a moment, then stayed still. Both canines looked at each other for a moment, then burst into laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of it.

"Absolutely none. The techies have run it though every translator they can think of, but there's no hint of sense within it. Have you got some good news for me besides the sandwiches?" Fox asked, swallowing down his food and glancing at Fay. She shook her head, ears drooping lower than usual, and his heart sank a little.

"I got a message from Fara," she said, referring of course to the daughter of the CEO of Phoenix Enterprises. "She says she has a feeling she knows how Cyrene is getting so many fresh ships and means to repair the old ones in the Ship Graves - and it's legitimate," she said glumly, to which Fox's tail froze.

"How come?" he asked. Fay sighed.

"Apparently, she was talking to LEGION's headquarters recently, and they've been given shipping rights to transport all their surplus Midgets to a out-of-the-way space port somewhere near the Epsilon system. They've had to also transfer a couple of their top mechanics to the port as well." Fox's muzzle broke into a smile, and his face lit up.

"How is that bad news? We have a lead, we only need to ask Fara to take us to the LEGION guy…" Fox began, but he noticed at the flinch of Fay's head that there was something that couldn't be done with that proposal.

"Fara's just been kidnapped," Fay said sullenly, to which Fox's ears shot up, and his hackles raised. "I don't know by who - she was at her own flat, and suddenly she said she heard a knock at the door and went to answer it." The dog was shivering a little. "There was a fight - lots of shouting and swearing and Fara screamed at the end of it." Fox stared dumbstruck at the dog.

"Did… did anyone else know of this arrangement?" Fox asked, trying to keep a level head, joining the dots in his head. If LEGION, the company known for mass-producing ships by the million, was supplying Cyrene, and Fara had just been kidnapped, it couldn't be a co-incidence that it was one of the two villains in Fox's mind that had abducted the fennec fox. Fay glanced at him for a moment before replying.

"Apparently, she was given a hint by Makati Kasogi," she said, wondering what the tod was thinking at the moment. Fox mulled this over - Kasogi was a racing driver, and glanced up at the screen showing the race. He flicked through the cameras until he found the one he was looking for - in a deep blue ship with white stripes adorning it, a red panda was wrestling with the controls of a poor ship.

"This is something deep," Fox said quietly, shaking his head. "It's not something that we can sort out with guns and blasters. We need diplomacy, but we need Fara back as well." Fay's face brightened at the determination in the vulpine's voice.

"So what are we going to do?" she asked. Fox mulled this over for only a second or two before he got off his bed, offering Fay a hand for her to follow.

"We're going to Corneria, and we're going to find Kasogi," Fox said bravely, taking the white dog from the bed, and the two of them leaving Fox's room, hurrying through the corridors to the changing rooms. "Flight suits," Fox said, heading into the male section, quickly slipping into his green and red one, with gold trim - a gift from his tailor after his victory over the Venomians in the Lylat War. He wished that it was another straight fight this time, not just mercenaries and independent companies flickering around with undistinguishable loyalties; but he hadn't taken command of the Great Fox without steeling himself for any sort of fight his rag-tag bunch of mercenaries were dragged into.

"Do you think this'll work?" asked Fay, emerging from the woman's area, having wriggled into her white and green flight suit. Fox buttoned up the front of his, pulling a gun-belt from his locker, and shrugged.

"I don't know, Fay. But I'm not going to let Fara get lost like that, and this racer's the only lead we have," he said, clipping a pair of grenades to his side. "C'mon, to the Arwings," he said again, trying to sound businesslike, but Fay tugged on his tail as he started to leave. Stifling the yelp, Fox turned to see Fay looking at him with serious, and slightly frightened eyes.

"Fox, you may be my captain, but I'm not sure you know exactly what you're doing here. You're flying off into dangerous territory, into some political war, without any battle plan," she said, placing a hand on his arm. "I don't want you to make any rash decisions - you're a key player in this army, and we can't afford to lose you," Fox blinked, looking down at Fay's hand, and sighed.

"Fay, I need to do something here. I don't want to just sit around here watching telescreen while Cyrene gets a bigger and bigger fleet, and if it means chasing up a lead early, I'm going to do it. If you'd prefer I went alone, didn't bring you. I wouldn't mind…" he started, but Fay shook her head.

"I'll come with you. I just want to be sure you know what you're doing," the dog insisted, and Fox nodded, giving a little smile.

"We're going to Flower Rise. By the time we get there, the race will be over, and the backmarkers will have returned back to their houses back there, including Kasogi. We ask him for information, even if he can just point us in the right direction, and then we check out this LEGION headquarters," he said, referring to the set of luxury apartments usually lived in by racing pilots and drivers, on a distant and unpolluted continent of Corneria. Fay nodded as she heard the idea in total, and removed her hand from Fox's body, giving the fox a smile.  
"All right captain, lead on."

---

It was incredible how much architecture could change in such short a distance, thought Fay as she glanced away from Flower Rise to where a huge, ugly racing factory was situated. It belonged to a relatively new team to the racing world, and so they'd set up as cheap a place as they could, not even bothering to paint the outside of their new factory with their team colours. In contrast, Flower Rise stood like a sparkling gem at the top of a hill; tall sky scrapers painted in flawless cream colours with gold gilt on the sides, inside a complex filled with freshly-mown grass, colour-arranged flowers and trees that seemed to be trying to compete with the buildings.

"I'd love to live here," she murmured to herself, looking at a gorgeous pink flower with three large petals seem to flop in the breeze and stare at her. Fox seemed to be admiring the nature too, but he was too determined on his mission to properly stop and allow his wing mate to admire the gardens. Makati Kasogi's apartment was one of the lower-level ones, as befitted a backmarker in the racers, who mostly there to appease the sponsors. As such, when the two pilots were buzzed into the building, they left the express lift to the higher floors well alone. Kasogi was already out of his rooms, greeting the two as they left the lift, bowing respectfully and ushering them into his apartment.

"Wow…" Fox whistled despite himself as he stepped into the gorgeous, well-lit atrium - easily as big as his room aboard the Great Fox. The red panda gave a momentary grin at the two mercenaries' stunned expressions, but then hurried on into another room to the left.

"Thank you for coming," he said in his quiet, high voice, not looking over his shoulder to make sure that the two had entered behind him. The lights flicked on with a snap of his fingers to illuminate a study, letters stacked impeccably neatly on one side of a bamboo desk, other files and stationary also placed away in a sort of neatness that would make Fay's father seethe with jealousy, she thought.

"What sort of information have you got?" Fox asked, obviously eager to get to the point. The racer nodded, turning round with a series of photos in hand. Fay took them, flicking through them with rapidly widening eyes. Fox took a couple once Fay had finished looking at them, and he began to mirror her expression.

"LEGION offered me a place as one of their pilots, as I have many sponsors and a good fan base, and I came to take a look round their factory. They were planning on partnering me with Fara Phoenix, to try and lure Phoenix Enterprises away from Arspace Dynamics," he explained, seating himself on a cushioned stool. "Neither of us were going to accept the offer - I'm very happy with Stellar Racing, and Tauv would never agree whatever his daughter did, but we decided to take a look around. I took those photos, Fara managed to get verbal information off some of the workers." He stopped for a moment to get three cups of water, leaving both mercenaries staring in awe at the pictures.

"Was this what they were going to tempt you with?" asked Fox, turning round a picture he was holding, showing a massive, sleek and sharp craft that was glinting in the light of the factory in the photo. Kasogi shook his head.

"I thought so, but that's just a model, a model of another craft, being made by Piranha - it seems LEGION want the prototype that's going to be released at the air show in three weeks' time…" Kasogi barely needed to finish before the two Star Fox members twigged on.

"They're going to take it by force!" squeaked Fay in shock. Fox's expression was more thunderous.

"Cyrene!" he exclaimed angrily. "She'll get them the prototype, LEGION takes it apart, finds out what goes on inside, sells it at high volume, makes cash, and provides Cyrene with the surplus…" he trailed off, seeing the red panda's bemused expression, and apologised. "Acquaintance of ours," he said, pocketing the photos. However, Fay appeared a little confused, and her hand was slipping towards the buckle of her blaster.

"How did you manage to contact us - Fara wouldn't have given you our contact details…" she mused, and Fox looked up, his brow furrowed in thought. Come to think of it, that was a good question. Kasogi was smiling at them both.

"She didn't give them willingly," he said, raising his own blaster and loosing off two stun shots at the canids' torsos. Both mercenaries were already tensed and ready, so they didn't quite topple backwards like the red panda was hoping, but sank to their knees slowly, the shock of betrayal written all over their faces before their eyes closed and they slumped to the floor.

---

"I'm sorry, Fay." There was a sigh from behind him, and a ripple through the electro-cuffs they were bound with.

"Fox, that's the twentieth time you've said that. I've told you, it wasn't all your fault, and if we can get out of here, I'll forgive you," the white dog replied irritably, attempting to kick against her bound feet. Both canids had woken up, one feeling like idiot of the year, the other feeling foolish for being such a sheep. Fay would have to reassess how much she would rebuke commands in the future.

One thing running through both Fox and Fay's minds at the moment was exactly what was going to happen to them at the moment - they appeared to be inside a storage room of some sort, well-kept, as the strip lighting above them hadn't flickered once, and the shelves were made of fresh, clean metal, the fruit and vegetables on them fresh, cardboard boxes dry and upright. They were currently bound back-to-back around a pole running down the middle of the room, electro-cuffs binding their hands, feet and necks. As expected, their firearms, grenades, comm.-links and ship ignition systems were gone, though that paled in comparison to the fact that both their flight suits had been taken, leaving them in their underclothes. Apparently, a note of some sort was taped to their chests, but given that their necks were cuffed together, they couldn't look down to see what was on it.

Fox was trying not to think too much about the situation in question at the moment, or at least to make it into a humorous situation in his head, trying to avoid thinking about his screw-up with following the lead given. Had Fara been aware of Kasogi's involvement when she made that video call? Was she in the league as well?

"This would be a much better situation if the girl I was with was psychically latent," thought Fox dryly, imagining Fay dressed as a mage, a quick muttered word deactivating the electric charge between the handcuffs, and sending a fireball rocketing down the corridors, helping them both to freedom. Maybe he'd meet someone like that later.

Fay, on the other hand, was seething inside, though doing her best to quell it. She'd been a little apprehensive at the start of this mission, and her fears had been confirmed - it was a trap, and now she was stuck here; all thanks to Fox, and she couldn't even give him a piece of her mind, whether to slap him as hard as she could, or give him a playful lick and forgive him. If she got out of this in one piece, she'd be spending a good week or two back at her parents' house before she went back to the Great Fox. Damn this woman Cyrene! Why did she want Fox so badly, and why did she want her dead?

"Fox?" she eventually said, breaking the uncomfortable silence between the two. Fox's ear flickered a little, but he looked up.  
"Yeah?"

"I think now'd be a good time to actually tell me something about Cyrene. I think I'm entitled to know your history, given that she's trying to kill me and I don't know the whole reasons why," she said bluntly, staring at the opposite wall with her now steely blue eyes. Fox paused for a moment, and then nodded.

"Allright then…"


End file.
