Chapter Text
This was a punishment gig; you weren’t about to convince Lieutenant Taiya otherwise.
He couldn’t help but growl as he stalked down the halls of the Tactical Communications Center, still buttoning his uniform. Zero-fucking-three and of course he’d been called up because of some goddamned weird signal the operator on duty couldn’t identify. This was all because he’d talked back to that captain six months ago aboard the Destier , he just knew it. Should’ve just kept his fucking mouth shut, and now here he was, graveyard shift in the mustiest, darkest building the Cornerian Fleet had to offer, supervising a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears grunts monitoring the deep-space channels for suspicious activity at all hours of the day.
Just his fucking luck.
His mood lightened a bit when he entered the control room and saw it was Macarthur in the hot seat. For a Signal Operator the young spaniel was only just barely competent, but at least he had a good sense of humor and wasn’t constantly brown-nosing and whining to Taiya about when his next promotion might be.
“All right, what is it?”
“Sir.” Macarthur straightened up and pointed at the set of monitors in front of him, all displaying a variety of data: deep-space radar, cross-spectrum readings, radiation outputs. From a quick glance Taiya couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Sorry to wake you, but our T-17 low-wave satellite picked up a blip about three minutes ago. It appears to be a distress signal originating from Meteo.”
“What, Sargasso spring a leak or something?” Taiya leaned forward to peer at the data readout, specifically the signal origin: no, those coordinates weren’t for Sargasso, not that he’d bother alerting the brass to send assistance to that den of criminals anyway. No, the signal was instead coming from farther out near the outskirts of the asteroid field, a distinct broadcast on all tactical channels, signed with the signature codes of...
He stiffened, then turned to glare at Macarthur. “Very funny, SO.” Really, he’d thought the young canine was smarter than that, or at least above these kinds of silly gags.
But Macarthur just shook his head. “It’s not a joke, sir,” he said, tapping the readout. “Look. It’s been verified through Isotope and everything. I didn’t mess with it, sir.” His voice dropped, just a hint of dread. “The signal really is coming from Raikos, sir.”
“Gimme a break.” Taiya rolled his eyes; okay, so the signal had been filtered and verified by the best analysis software the Fleet could get its hands on. It wasn’t Venomian, it wasn’t some random radio operator messing with the dials, but that certainly didn’t mean... “That old space station’s a ghost town. Been that way for thirty years. It’s dead, Macky.”
“Even so.” Macarthur nodded at the screen where a distinct scrolling mountain-valley pattern indicated the transmission they were receiving. “That doesn’t make what we’re hearing any less real.”
Taiya sighed. Of all the dumbshit reasons to get woken up in the middle of the night...and it was dumbshit, a joke of some sort or an elaborate hoax, perhaps. There were all sorts of urban legends out there about Raikos Station. He’d never bothered reading up on it himself, but even he knew the basics: that the once-thriving colony had been abandoned overnight three decades ago after some awful unknown tragedy, that the military had officially decommissioned it and barred anyone from going near it almost immediately. Theories about what had happened on Raikos ranged from the rational to outright delusion, but one thing was for certain: no one should be sending any sort of signal out from the abandoned station, much less a distress call.
It had to be a hoax. But, as Taiya thought about it more, what if there was the slightest chance it wasn’t? Even abandoned space stations could be places of temporary refuge if you got desperate enough. What if someone with a broken-down ship had taken shelter out there and was now sending out a call for help, and Taiya ignored it? How would that reflect on his record, to not do his job, to let something as simple as this slip by on his watch?
He huffed, pinched the bridge of his nose. He was in enough trouble already; no need to risk more. Best to play it safe.
Opening his eyes, he nodded at Macarthur. “Save the feed and prepare to forward,” he said, not bothering to see if the other airman obeyed him before crossing the room to the comms unit on the opposite wall. He dialed the number from memory, and wasn’t surprised when it was picked up almost immediately. As far as he was concerned no one in that damned office ever slept.
“Patch me through to General Hare.”
#
Of all the things Peppy had expected to do upon being promoted to General of the Cornerian Air Fleet, chasing ghost stories definitely wasn’t it.
He frowned down at the brief on his computer. A distress signal from Space Station Raikos? It had to be some sort of mistake. A hoax, even.
He shook his head. If someone was looking to play a prank, they were about thirty years too late. Peppy himself didn’t know much about Raikos—the station had been under the oversight of General Gilroy, Pepper’s predecessor, so all he knew was what he’d heard on the news, and back then he’d been suitably distracted trying to establish Star Fox as a reputable mercenary team along with James. All he really caught were snippets here and there, and even then he didn’t pay much attention. Something about an accident on the station, some catastrophe that wiped everyone out overnight. Just another bad thing happening in a place too far away for him to give a shit.
He wasn’t much better off now. The records system under Gilroy had been entirely different and of course nothing had been transferred over correctly, so requisitioning reports and documents from that time was an almost impossibly daunting task of wild goose chase after wild goose chase, trying to track down files in a format he couldn’t process stored on servers no one had access to. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, a total goddamned mess.
He sighed and took a sip of coffee, savoring the bitter taste before turning bleary eyes back to the computer screen. At least he’d been able to get his paws on a bit more information, sparse at it was. Space Station Raikos, officially constructed and launched thirty-three years ago by the Cornerian military under the leadership of Dr. Alvis Harmon, a world-renowned scientist best known for his work on genetics and physiology. Raikos’s civilian inhabitants were comprised of several dozen families from all different species who, in exchange for free lodging and amenities, helped Dr. Harmon develop his research—working as lab technicians and other things, far as Peppy could tell. Although there’d also been a mention in one of the documents of a Project Augment? He didn’t know what that was, and of course the feelers he’d sent out hadn’t returned anything yet. Probably just some side thing Harmon had been working on, that somehow found its way into an assistant’s notes or something.
Regardless, the remaining files he’d obtained painted a grim picture: three years after the station’s founding, some sort of catastrophe occurred on board. No one knew exactly what happened as there were no eye witnesses; could have been a radiation leak or a failure in the life support systems, or maybe Raikos had been hit by a particularly large and nasty asteroid. Whatever the reason, the station went dark overnight. Gilroy dutifully sent rescue parties out to investigate, but their debriefs were heavily classified: Peppy could only glean that everyone on board had died, including Harmon himself. Gilroy promptly scrubbed everything and prohibited anyone from approaching the station in the aftermath, probably to avoid the embarrassment of dead civilians showing up on the news. And that was that.
Except, apparently, it wasn’t.
Who would be sending a distress signal from Raikos now? The station had remained silent the past three decades, floating lonely and forlorn on the outskirts of Meteo. The military never approached it again, and he hadn’t heard any stories of scavengers or pirates attempting to raid it—not stories he believed, anyway. There couldn’t be anything of value left on the space station after all these years, so why would someone go there? Why send a signal out from a place that the rest of the Lylat System considered dead and gone?
A sudden ping on his terminal before a new window popped up: his aide had just forwarded him their newly-obtained personnel records for Raikos. He took a moment to scroll through the names, each one paired with a standard ID photo: there was Harmon, a stern-looking monitor lizard; then several of his research staff; security; and finally the civilians, each file marked with that distinct, accusatory red X indicating they had been confirmed deceased. He sighed, ears drooping as the list went on. So many dead, so many lives suddenly extinguished...
Then he saw it. The room shrank around him, his heart skipping a beat in his chest as he stared at the name, at the photograph next to it. No. It couldn’t be. It had to be a coincidence, surely it wasn’t possible...?
A brisk knock at the door startled him from his thoughts, and he looked up just in time for his aide to poke her head in. “General,” she said. “I’ve got First Sergeant Stacker on the line. He’s inquiring again about scrambling a team to go check out the situation on Raikos. What should I tell him?”
That had initially been the plan: Raikos was technically still under Cornerian military jurisdiction, so it made sense to send a team over to investigate. Stacker would find men who were well-trained and competent; they’d get the job done. All Peppy had to do was give the order.
But...almost without thought, his gaze drifted back to the personnel file displayed on his screen, the name and the scruffy face next to it. This was...interesting, to say the least. Could it mean there was more to Raikos than the official reports said? He needed to investigate further, gather all the intel, tie up loose ends, as it were. And he knew exactly who to send to do it.
He glanced up at his aide. “Tell him to hold off for now. I’ve gotta look into something first.”
She nodded and retreated from the room. Without letting himself think too much about it, Peppy reached for his comm and dialed a number by heart.
#
Slippy had him trapped; no contingencies, no escape. Fox had never been more grateful for the sudden interruption of the incoming transmission.
Glancing up from the holochess board, he grinned as the familiar face unfolded across the Great Fox’s projector screen. “Peppy! Long time no see, old man.”
“Fox.” From behind his large oak desk, the old hare sent them all a smile. Fox couldn’t be sure, but he looked a little tired. “It’s good to see all of you.” From the couch in front of the TV Falco waved a lazy wing, while Krystal sauntered over with a mug of fresh coffee, tilting her head.
“Is something wrong?”
“Ah.” Peppy’s nose twitched, a sign Fox had come to learn over the years indicated he was bothered by something and trying not to show it. “To be honest I’m not sure. But I’d like to enlist Star Fox’s help to find out.”
“We’re listening,” Fox said.
“Have any of you heard of Raikos?”
Falco snorted. “Sure, the ghost station.”
“Ghost station?” Krystal asked, so Fox spoke for her benefit.
“It’s a space station that went dark somewhere in Meteo a while ago. Nobody really knows what happened, and no one goes there anymore.”
“That about sums it up.” Peppy sighed. “So you can imagine our surprise when we picked up a clear distress signal originating from there last night.”
“From Raikos? ” Slippy scratched his head. “That’s impossible! The station’s been decommissioned for decades—even if someone managed to find their way on board, there’s no way their communications systems would still be functional. Not to mention whatever happened there thirty years ago left no survivors.”
“...Well.” Peppy’s smile turned wry. “That’s where things get...interesting, I’m afraid.”
“Interesting how.” Inexplicably the fur on the back of Fox’s neck rose. Something was wrong, something in Peppy’s shifty expression, in the way his paws fidgeted just slightly on the desk. “Peppy, what are you not telling us? What did you find out about Raikos?”
“Not much,” the hare answered. “Just, ah, that apparently the records in the aftermath of the catastrophe were wrong. Most everyone on the station died, yes, but there appears to have been one survivor.”
“No fuckin’ way,” Falco said. “You telling us someone escaped the station when all hell broke loose, and then somehow spent the next thirty years under the radar? That’s ridiculous!”
Of all the responses Fox would’ve expected from Peppy in that moment, the tired sort of what-can-you-do? shrug wasn’t it. “Not that ridiculous when you consider who it is.”
“Wait.” Fox frowned. “You mean we might know this person? This survivor?”
Peppy hummed, and the look he sent them then could best be described as pity. “You could say that,” he said. “In fact, Star Fox, you could say you know him quite well.”
#
He ended the transmission to the sound of Falco’s swearing, Slippy’s excited babbling, Krystal’s confused questions, and Fox’s stunned silence. Peppy sighed and sat back in his chair, taking a moment just to breathe. There. It was done. No going back now.
He’d still have to get back to Stacker, issue an order to deploy a team out to Raikos. But first, they needed intel. And now he knew just where to obtain it.
Taking a moment to rub his eyes, he glanced back at his computer. The personnel files from Raikos were still displayed there, three in particular centered on the screen. Civilians: two adults and a child, all with the same last name.
O’DONNELL, S. A she-wolf, brown with white patches, with a red X next to her name.
O’DONNELL, T. Another she-wolf black as night, also with a red X.
And then, finally: O’DONNELL, W. A gray wolf pup maybe eight or nine at most, grinning openly at the camera with bright violet eyes.
No X.
Peppy sighed, heaved himself from the chair, and went to refill his coffee.
It was going to be a long day.
#
The sky on Macbeth was a dingy, overcast gray, threatening rain without the teeth to back up that promise, gloomy and downtrodden. Fitting, Fox thought as he hurried down the street, flight jacket pulled tightly about himself against the cold.
If you were looking for someone who didn’t want to be found, this was where you’d go.
Star Wolf itself had never been very difficult to locate, even back when they’d still been enemies. Business was business, after all, especially amongst mercenaries, so all you really had to do was know the right people to talk to, the right strings to pull and the right moment to give them a tug. This time it was a rather surly Leon who’d answered their call, looking much like he’d just rolled out of bed, and the chameleon wasted no time in sending them coordinates before telling them in no uncertain terms not to bother him with this shit again.
Still, he’d given them what they’d asked for, which was a sight better than what he would’ve done just a few years ago. Funny how becoming reluctant allies to save the star system from an invading horde of mind-controlling bugs tended to change relationships.
Fox swallowed, something deep in his belly suddenly flushing with heat. Changing relationships, indeed.
He certainly hadn’t expected it, but something had changed between him and Wolf, back there zipping through the spinning tunnels of the Aparoid homeworld. It was subtle, a barely noticeable shift, but some part of him softened with relief when Wolf showed up, tightened his heart in his chest when the older man veered off with his team to give them a chance at destroying the Queen. It had been Wolf’s voice that had encouraged him to deal the final blow, and in the aftermath, floating silently in his Arwing as he watched the planet disintegrate, he’d cycled through all the comm channels in search of a Wolfen frequency, and felt something hollow open up inside of him when he got no response.
He’d tried not to think about it too much back then, as they returned to Corneria to much fanfare and celebration. But as the weeks afterward turned into months and the feeds showed no sign of Star Wolf, something began to take hold in Fox’s heart, cold and unrelenting. Something like worry. Wolf couldn’t just be gone; he was too brash, too fearless, too goddamned stubborn for that. It was the last thing he’d expected and took him completely by surprise, but all of a sudden Fox couldn’t even fathom a universe without the older man in it.
So the relief blindsided him with its intensity one morning approximately six months later when he woke up to an alert from the Fringenet: one of the more well-paying merc jobs, a supply raid on a convoy of Cornerian freighters, had been claimed by Wolf O’Donnell. Six hours later (not that Fox was counting or anything) it was marked as completed. Star Wolf was back.
Fox didn’t know why the news made him so happy; it just did, and over the next few months he followed Wolf closely, scrolling feeds between missions, flipping through the news before bed. Updates weren’t frequent—for whatever reason Wolf seemed to want to keep a low profile, only taking jobs here and there. But still Fox found himself anxiously awaiting each new sighting, something inside him just lighting up whenever he saw Wolf’s name or a blurry image of gray fur and pointed ears, confirmation that the older man was still here, that Fox hadn’t lost him. Slowly but surely thoughts of Wolf began making their way into his head during the day, a low gravelly voice finding a place in his dreams at night. And Fox wasn’t stupid.
He knew what a crush looked like.
It stunned him when he first realized it, along with a wave of shame—how could he be attracted to a man, and to Wolf of all people? But as the months passed something about it just began to settle, found a place inside his heart that whispered of yes and right . After all, during the Aparoid invasion Wolf had proven himself more than just a heartless mercenary; he’d shown that he cared, not just about Corneria but about Fox specifically, saving his life before not hesitating to risk his own for the good of Lylat. Wolf was a hero, despite how being labelled as such would likely give him hives. He’d shown himself capable of nobility and understanding and a gruff yet clear kindness; why would Fox not find himself attracted to that?
Krystal had picked up on it almost immediately, of course, and they’d had a talk. Fox had to give her credit; he’d been willing to try anyway, to build something between them despite the lack of feeling, but the vixen shut him down quickly, admitting that, truthfully, she was unsure whether her love for him was purely because of him, or simply because he’d saved her on Sauria and then been her guide to the rest of Lylat. I need to know for sure, she’d said, which was as much of a nail in the coffin as anything, but Fox was grateful for it. They were still good friends, still each other’s closest confidantes, and he would always be thankful for that.
She’d volunteered to come to Macbeth with him, actually, and so had Falco, but he’d declined. He told them it was because Star Wolf was no longer their enemy, and if worse came to worst, Fox could take Wolf in a fight. But the truth was some selfish part of himself—the part that thought of Wolf and felt nothing but warmth and a tremorous shy yearning—just rebelled at the thought of someone else being here. Wolf himself might not think anything of it, but the prospect of bringing up with him a topic so potentially vulnerable...something in Fox just didn’t want an audience for that. Wanted, strange as it sounded, to protect Wolf as best he could.
He only hoped the older man would let him.
A small dilapidated building resolved itself suddenly from the gloom, topped with a flickering neon sign that read THE SILVER WING. Fox paused at the door, glancing briefly down at the display on his wrist panel: yes, here were the coordinates Leon had sent. For better or for worse, Wolf was here.
Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The establishment, as it turned out, was exactly how he’d imagined it: a bar along the back manned by a rusty-looking android, a couple of high tables, and booths all along the walls. The lighting here was dim and smoky, lending a mood of simultaneous gloom and privacy, and the few patrons scattered throughout the space looked mostly to be day laborers just coming off shift, tired and filthy and staring into their glasses as if seeking answers there.
A quick inhale brought him a mix of scents: the stench of alcohol, of course, but also sweat and rust, disinfectant and exhaustion, along with just a hint of piss. And underneath it all the faintest tinge of gun oil and blaster slag, coming from a familiar figure hunched at one of the booths in the far corner.
Fox blinked, taking another quick sniff. For all the times he and Wolf had crossed cannons and insults during lurid battles and heart-pounding dogfights, they’d never met face-to-face—he’d never gotten a chance to actually scent Wolf until now. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that the older man actually smelled rather nice: Wolf’s scentname was the smell of freshly-fallen pine needles mixed with seawater and just a hint of something herbal, similar to nia-sage but not quite. Pleasant , was how his mind helpfully decided to label it, and decidedly not supposed to be associated with one of the most notorious criminals in Lylat.
But then again, that wasn’t who Wolf was anymore. Not to Fox, anyway.
The android behind the bar noticed him and moved to speak but Fox waved it off, slowly approaching the booth. Wolf didn’t move, engrossed in something he was reading on the tablet he had propped up in one paw. The other held a still-glowing cigarette, and Fox paused just shy of the booth itself, suddenly lost as to what to say. Come here often? He almost laughed.
Then, without turning, Wolf growled, a low rumble up his throat. “You’re in my blind spot, pup.”
The familiar voice, all gravel and smoke, sent a small shiver down Fox’s spine. Even so, he was hardly surprised that Wolf had marked him so quickly; you didn’t get to the older man’s age doing mercenary work without developing damned good instincts. He slid into the opposite side of the booth, trying not to grimace when his tail brushed against something sticky. “Uh. Sorry.”
A single violet eye flicked up from the tablet to give him a quick once-over. Fox took the opportunity to return the assessment. Wolf for all intents and purposes seemed largely unchanged from when Fox had seen him last; a bit of true white was starting to creep into his muzzle and he had a new, thin scar running about halfway down his right cheek, but otherwise he looked much the same from the simple, well-worn flight jacket to the blaster at his hip to the trademark eyepatch. The only other thing Fox noticed was that he wore a pendant of some sort around his neck, a vaguely comma-shaped piece of gray metal hung from a thick leather cord. It was no material Fox was familiar with but it looked quite old, the cord worn and slightly frayed, the decorative piece polished smooth from years of exposure. A memento, perhaps?
Wolf, for his part, broke the silence first. The cigarette smoldered, bright red ember on its end glowing like an eye. “Whaddaya want.”
Well, it wasn’t the worst start. Fox straightened his shoulders. “I’m, ah, here to ask a favor.”
“Figured as much.” Wolf flicked whatever display he’d been reading on his tablet away and leaned back in the booth, one arm thrown over the top of the seat, nothing but casual. But he wasn’t fooling Fox. This close he could smell the other man’s tension, the edge of mistrust, and he made sure to place his paws on the table in clear view.
“I came alone,” he said. “Have a sniff around if you don’t believe me. But I really just want to talk.”
“Hn.” Wolf’s nostrils dutifully flared but only briefly, just enough to scent Fox, to confirm that he was telling the truth. His shoulders dropped just slightly as he took a drag of his cigarette, turning to expel the stream of smoke out of the booth. It was a surprisingly thoughtful gesture and Fox couldn’t help the small smile.
“Those things’ll kill you.”
“So will tons of shit a lot higher on my list.” Wolf cocked his head. “You’re shorter than I thought.”
“So are you.” It was true: while the older man was still clearly taller, built broader with shoulders that filled his jacket out well, he probably only had two or three inches at most on Fox. It was a strange realization, that someone like Wolf whom Fox had always considered a little larger-than-life was, in the end, just a man like anyone else.
He cleared his throat. “I made inquiries around Sargasso first, but they said you’re no longer in charge there.”
Wolf shrugged. “Yeah, tossed that gig a couple months after the Aparoids. Infighting’s a bitch, and we live better as free agents anyway.”
Fox nodded. “So then you probably haven’t been tuned into the scuttlebutt out of Meteo.”
Wolf’s ears flicked up, caution and curiosity all in one. “No. Why?”
“It’s not bad.” Or at least Fox hoped it wasn’t; who knew what they would find when they investigated the station? “I, uh, just came here to ask you something.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s about Raikos.”
Only another canine like Fox would have noticed the sudden switch-flip. Wolf barely moved, but to Fox it unfolded as clearly as a high-definition holovid: the older man’s ears folded down toward his head as his eye narrowed, and his scent changed, in the span of half a second flipping from curiosity to full-blown surprise before it snapped into that distinct cloying-sour smell Fox immediately recognized. Fear.
Then, before he could say anything, Wolf smashed the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray with savage finality and heaved up out of the booth. “This conversation’s over.”
It happened so fast it took a couple seconds for him to respond. Quicky Fox scrambled out of his seat but Wolf was already at the door, shouldering it open with a sharp bang! that echoed through the space and he gave chase without thinking, running after the other man as he stalked down the sidewalk. “Wolf! Wolf, wait!”
His fingers brushed the older man’s shoulder and Wolf spun, smacking his paw aside with enough force to sting. “ Don’t touch me. ”
Fox swallowed, couldn’t help but stare. Everything in Wolf’s body language broadcasted fury from his raised ears to his puffed-out tail, but his scent from before was unchanged: Wolf was terrified. “What happ—”
“You shut your fucking mouth,” the older man snapped, each word punctuated with a barely-contained rage that, somehow, rang with such an undercurrent of hollow grief Fox felt something in his gut twist in response. “Don’t you fucking dare—I buried that shit thirty years ago, what gives you the fucking right— ”
“We received a distress signal from there yesterday,” Fox said, and had to clamp down on the urge to reach out when Wolf reared back, eye going wide. “I don’t have the details but Peppy’s sending us to investigate. Wolf, if you were on Raikos, if you know anything about what happened there...”
He didn’t bother finishing. Wolf gaped at him, no keen sense of smell necessary to see the alarm and dismay plainly written on his face. For just one moment Fox saw it: the vulnerability. The young pup who had lived on Raikos, who looked out the window and dreamed of the stars, who ran and laughed and played with his friends before catastrophe struck, before everything was stolen from him in one fell swoop. Before he’d had no choice but to become a survivor.
Then, in the next instant, that survivor took back control. Blankness slammed down over Wolf’s expression as clean as steel shutters and the older man stepped forward, jabbing a finger at Fox’s sternum so hard he nearly stumbled back.
“You stay the fuck away from that place,” Wolf growled, as something like desperation flickered in his gaze. “You hear me? All you’ll find there is evil and death.”
Then he was moving, hurrying down the sidewalk with his paws shoved in his pockets, everything about him promising violence for anyone who tried to interfere. Fox let him go, too busy standing there utterly shell-shocked. Holy shit, what had just happened?
It was the last way he’d expected someone like Wolf to react. Despite Fox’s best intentions the other mercenary had managed to write himself on his heart exactly the way Wolf intended: as someone stalwart, utterly unbreakable. To see this now, the cracks in the facade splintering so easily with the mere mention of Raikos...if Fox had any doubts about Wolf’s story before, he didn’t now. The older man had seen something on Raikos, something terrible that had burnt itself onto his very bones. Something lurked in the dead station’s dark depths, a horror awful enough to scare Wolf O’Donnell. Did Fox really want to risk himself—and his team—against the same evil?
A sudden stinging made him grimace; he’d clenched his paw into a fist so tight his claws were digging into his palm. Fox sighed and shook his paw out, glancing once more up the street but Wolf was gone, leaving only a lingering scent of seawater and pine. Everything inside him ached to give chase; that fear, that deep, vibrating hurt —Fox’s heart tightened in his chest just thinking about it. But he knew, in that moment, that he couldn’t. He hadn’t earned it, and Wolf had been through enough already. He didn’t deserve for Fox to follow him, to demand answers he didn’t have, dragging him back into a nightmare it was obvious he’d give anything not to revisit. After everything he’d been through Wolf O’Donnell deserved some respite, and Fox would do everything in his power to respect that.
But it still left him with more questions than answers. Something terrible had gone down on Raikos all those years ago, when Wolf had only been a child. But did that mean the same horror was still going on today? The station had been silent for so long, at least until this unexpected distress signal. Wasn’t it Star Fox’s duty to investigate, to get to the bottom of the mystery, if not for him then at least so that he could provide Wolf with the closure he’d likely been seeking for the past three decades?
But what if he was wrong? What if whatever stalked Raikos and Wolf’s nightmares still roamed the space station’s silent halls? Was it worth the risk?
He sighed and, without letting himself think too much about it, turned his steps back toward the Silver Wing. Gods, he needed a drink.
#
The walls of this stinking place closed in, the narrow alley he walked down pressing in on all sides. Wolf growled and quickened his pace, but it was no use. Didn’t matter how fast he moved; he couldn’t outrun this. Not the screams, the snarls, the stench of blood that filled his nose. Not that awful, terrible howling , like something monstrous, something utterly evil , that echoed even now through the recesses of his mind.
The memories rushed to him unbidden: the cold unyielding floor of the station beneath his feet as he ran, the stink of fear as his heart pounded in his chest, the awful alien snarls of the ones who were now predators, who sought nothing but blood and death.
You...You killed her.
I’m so sorry, Liam—
Don’t look back!
I love you. Always will.
His left eye throbbed, the empty scarred-over socket alit with phantom pain: the whistle of claws, the shadow of a slash, agony and blood and endless darkness. The pendant around his neck grew suddenly heavy, guilt and grief and a trembling, helpless fury and Wolf snarled and dug desperately for his cigs, shoving the white stick between his teeth and flicking his lighter. He had to get away from it, the darkness, the glowing eyes. The fear, the helplessness—he wasn’t that little boy anymore, he wasn’t, he was grown now, powerful, respected, he had nothing to fear anymore and if he could just get this fucking thing to just—fucking—LIGHT—
The yell tore itself from his throat, thirty years of pain and desperation, and his fist hit the nearest wall. Pain erupted up his knuckles as the wall caved in, a giant spider-webbing crater like he’d punched glass instead of reinforced brick but Wolf didn’t care, couldn’t care because in that moment as agony licked up his nerves it suddenly became clear to him. Destruction. That’s what he was good for, what those fuckers on Raikos had bred into him with their needles and meds and glittering, greedy eyes. So that’s what he would do. That’s what he would bring to them.
He stepped back from the broken wall and took a deep breath. What had happened on Raikos...it could never get out. Didn’t matter the whole fucking thing was Corneria’s fault, that that damned General Hare would probably die of a heart attack the instant he learned the truth. If something was going on with Raikos—if, somewhere deep in the bowels of the station something had awakened once more, gnashing its teeth and howling for blood...Wolf couldn’t let it escape. He wouldn’t.
Everyone thought Andross was the greatest threat to ever descend on the Lylat System. But they were wrong. If the secret of Raikos ever got out, it didn’t matter what resources or firepower they had. They wouldn’t win this war.
He turned and headed for the hangar, already plotting the course in his head. He’d had no choice back then, three decades ago; he’d only been a kid so he’d had to run, to hide, to pack his nightmares away in the hopes it would keep terrible things from crawling out of the dark. But that wasn’t the case anymore. Now he was older, stronger, exactly the way they’d made him. He was the monster now.
And after all this time, the monster was coming home.