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Corneria was beautiful this time of the year. Fox always thought it so. It wasn’t too chilly, but not so hot that he would sweat at the minimal movement. He was walking quietly down the street, observing people milling about, calling on their phones or simply sharing times with friends and loved ones. Corneria was peaceful, and he was proud to say he’d directly helped achieving that sought-after peace.
He was walking down a familiar road. Sure, he hadn’t been here in years, but he remembered it as if it was yesterday. He looked up at the huge building in front of him with a sort of nostalgic smile. If seen from above, the stern structure would have had the shape of a perfect circle, hollow inside where a grand garden was, a place to decompress after tedious exams and training sessions. Thousands of tiny windows could be seen on every side, and there were grand and dark doors in front of them, still adorned in silver and with cameras tracing the movements of everyone who came in close.
Right over the entrance, in huge and military font, was written:
CORNERIA FLIGHT ACADEMY
Fox pressed on the button next to one of those doors.
“Who goes there?” A gruff, stern voice resounded through the tiny speaker.
“Fox McCloud of the Star Fox team. General Pepper wanted to see us.” He replied.
“And the other one?” The other voice continued. Fox turned to let Falco where he was standing, so the officer on the other side could confirm him visually.
The avian huffed, looking done. Eventually he sighed. “Falco Lombardi. Star Fox ace pilot.” He said, at least somewhat proudly. Fox shook his head from where he was standing. He’d let Falco have it this time.
“General Pepper is waiting for you in the great hall. Do you know where that is?”
“Sure thing.” Fox responded.
A second later a buzz resounded and the door unlocked. Fox moved again to push it open, it was rather heavy, and made of full steel, before entering.
Two figures looked at them as they made their way through, surveilling them, and Falco soundlessly followed him. But once they were through the checkpoint, the familiar internal architecture welcomed them. Gray-ish walls colored a serious blue in a few squares, in some sort of strange mingle of military need and design, surrounded them. Fox kept going with a clear destination in mind, the sound of his shoes on the squeaky clean floor reminding him of simpler, and perhaps a bit happier, times.
“You know I hate military spaces, right?” Falco pushed his hands in his pockets as he traveled next to him.
“I know, I know. That’s why I appreciate you being here even more.” Fox explained, at which Falco nodded. “But you know I wouldn’t deny General Pepper.”
“Not when there’s this short on money. Again.” Falco murmured under his breath, though Fox shared the sentiment. War was terrible, by all means. But it usually brought home something to eat for them. “What do we even have to do here, anyway?”
“The academy got a new flight simulator. It should be able to correctly simulate an Arwing, but the General wants to be sure. So, what better way to make sure the claims are real if not to have us try it?” He answered, with a shrug.
One of Falco’s eyebrows shot up. “So? Just get in there, try it, and that’ll be it?”
“We’ll have to do a questionnaire on our experience, I suppose. Well, you will have to do it.”
Falco smiled coyly. “Ah, I see how it is. You just got me in because you didn’t want to be bothered with the paperwork!”
Fox chuckled, shrugging. “Maybe. How about I wanted to make sure that the simulation is perfectly realistic, by bringing with me my most trusted pilot and the one that’s sure to give this simulator a run for its money?” He added, with a smile just as coy.
Falco hummed. “Flattery will get you anywhere.” Though he quickly elbowed Fox. “But I’ll get back at you for this.”
“Suit yourself.”
Fox changed direction, heading for the garden in the center. When he opened a door, and they were both outside again, Falco was speechless for a moment. He looked up, then turned around, mesmerized.
That’s right. Fox had forgotten this was Falco’s first time inside the Academy walls.
“Cool, huh?” He said, stopping for a moment to let his friend look around and peek at everything.
“I never expected a place like this to be found inside a block of concrete, that’s for sure.” He muttered, under his breath.
There were a few benches around, and a couple of large flowerbeds with lush green trees in the middle of them, giving just enough shade for it to be comfortable. A little farther away, there were playing fields for various sports, large enough to host all the cadets in the morning call. Speaking of, a handful of students in cadet uniforms were running frantically from one side of the building to the other, probably late for their lessons.
“So this is where you studied?” Falco asked, after another twirl around himself.
“Where I learned the most about how to fly, yes.” Fox replied, a bit wistfully.
“But not everything.” Falco countered.
“Well… no, I can’t ignore that it was my father who got me into flying for real. Though… credit where it’s due, the Academy taught me a lot about flight theory, and other things… even if I found the most of them to be tedious. It shaped me into the pilot I wanted to be. Though I still left.” He replied, remembering the true reason behind his choice. It didn’t get any easier to think about. Before he noticed he’d crossed his arms and was squeezing them.
Falco nudged him in the side again, taking him out of the depressing spiral before he could start.
“Hey. He would have been proud of the pilot you are.” Fox glanced up at him, his lips quirking up. “I mean it! You didn’t defeat Andross that many times because of luck.”
Fox supposed Falco was right. The avian never lied, when it came to giving his opinions about others.
“Thank you.” He murmured under his breath.
Falco started walking again, aimlessly initially. Then, just after enough time for Fox to calm down, he asked:
“So, this great room or whatever, where is it?”
“Great hall.” Fox corrected. He then put his hand towards another door. “This way.”
He guided Falco through half the garden, then through a set of corridors and in the end, following some helpful signs with directions, they finally reached their destination.
It was grand, definitely, with big screens over their head, in a position that didn’t hurt their necks if they were to look at them. It had a few tables around, but as far as Fox remembered, no lectures were ever had here. It was a large room used for drills, or if something important had to be said to the entire academy. There were some egg-shaped things on one side, things Fox knew would be simulators, and close to them was a desk, but there were barely any people around.
It just looked like one giant, almost empty room. Fox had memories insisting it should be full of people… but it would probably stay like this until lessons ended.
Someone approached them, and without his uniform or hat, it took Fox a moment to realize who he was really looking at.
“General Pepper!” He said, surprised, walking to meet him halfway. “There you are, sir.”
“It’s a pleasure to see the both of you.” The General replied.
“It’s the same for us too, but… how come you’re not in your uniform?” Fox asked, tilting his head to the side.
“I simply don’t want the new cadets to feel uneasy. I’m not here to judge them, I wanted to see this test run with my own eyes. I see we both had the same idea.” He commented, looking at both Fox and Falco. At the somewhat business casual cream-colored trousers and hoodie Fox had put on, and at the dark leather jacket with a simple white shirt and torn jeans Falco was wearing.
“Well, yes. We were afraid we’d attract too much attention if we didn’t seem like civilians…” Fox admitted, looking back up at the huge hall. Pepper brought his hands behind his back. Even without the uniform on, he still remained ever the polite General.
“A reasonable assumption, but enough about that. How have you been?” He asked. He… even seemed to look a little bit younger, without his signature burgundy uniform on. Or maybe he just looked chirpier than usual, considering this time there was no world-ending threat happening.
“Ah, life has been… normal. We’re excited to start this simulation, right Falco?” Fox said, nudging his friend in the arm. He’d tensed, like he always did in front of a military executive, though in comparison he almost looked relaxed in front of Pepper. In any case, the familiar gesture served enough to snap him out of it, and instead of keeping his arms close to his chest, Falco pushed them by his side, one on his hip, and nodded.
“Yeah, sure.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” The General replied, with another nod. He then took a step to the side, revealing another dog that had been hidden behind him due to her small stature all this time. She looked like a poodle, and had big glasses over her eyes. “This here is Ms. Rose. She’ll be our simulator technician for this trial.” The other dog bowed politely.
“It’s a pleasure meeting the saviors of the Lylat System in the flesh.” She said, with a rather small voice.
“The pleasure’s ours.” Fox replied.
“What do we need a simulator technician for?” Falco asked, raising an eyebrow.
“In case there’s anything to adjust mid-flight,” Fox explained, “or in case something goes wrong in general… you name it.”
Falco looked at him, even more suspicious. Well, he had to admit the way he’d phrased it didn’t sound terribly reassuring.
“Don’t look at me like that. Even if there was a problem, you’d just…” Fox continued, flicking one of the avian’s hands. “Wing it.”
Falco looked at him even more done, but this time he had to force himself to not laugh outright – only a concealed snort passed through his clamped beak.
“In any case… I’ll be at your service in case you don’t understand something, first and foremost.” The petite dog said. Falco got her attention back on her, stretching his neck.
“Alright. If we have everything we need, let’s get this over with.”
“Of course. The simulators are just over there.”
The technician moved, and the rest of the group behind her. The simulator looked like a strange egg seen from the outside. There were a series of them, in various shapes and sizes but still rather similar. The only thing effectively telling them apart was a bright red number and letter written on their side. There were cables exiting from each and every one of them, connecting them to what looked like a console not too far away. And then, another large cable went from the console to the big screens in the room.
“What’re that for?” Falco questioned, pointing at them.
“It’ll show us what you see.” Fox answered.
“So everyone will be able to see what I do on the big screen?” Falco tried to get confirmation. When Fox nodded again, he sighed. “Great.”
His friend patted him on the back with a smile. “Don’t worry, once you’re inside you won’t even notice it. It’s standard for every training sim, if this were an exam it would help us judge your choices.”
“Unfortunately.” Falco looked rather unhappy about it.
“Is this your first time in a simulator, sir?” Rose asked, adjusting her glasses. She’d moved so silently to the console, that Fox was surprised to see where she’d ended up.
“Drop the ‘sir’, please.” Falco replied, almost disgusted. “But yeah. It’s the first time.”
“I’ll need your name and surname then, to create a digital identity needed to start the simulation.”
“Falco Lombardi.” He quickly replied. Rose nodded and in a few quick keystrokes she had what she needed. “Anything that’s different from an actual Arwing that I should know about?”
“You may open sim A-13 and look inside. It’s structured to be just like the inside of an Arwing. If you see anything you do not recognize please let me know.”
One hatch, from the egg labeled A-13, budged. Falco looked at it quizzically before Fox showed him where to press and helped him open it. He peeked inside too – it did look quite like an Arwing. All the buttons and instruments were there, in their right place. Instead of the familiar thermal glass around the cockpit, there was a huge screen, going all around the pilot. One quick look up and he confirmed that the same material was also on the inside of the door. It would give the impression of truly being airborne.
Falco got in and sat. He observed the various controls, tested the stick, then loosened it with a knob at its bottom. More sensitive, it made hotshot tricks he was famous for easier – Fox almost rolled his eyes. After another sweep of the various buttons, some placed above Falco’s head that he switched to his preferences, he finally asked:
“There’s this… door sign thing or something. What does it do?”
“Hold up a moment, let me see… Oh, that. It’s for closing and opening the door once you’re inside.” The woman’s voice came directly into the simulator and almost startled both Falco and Fox. “In front of you is a headset… it should be the correct size. Please put it on and tell me if you can still hear me.”
“Can I have one too?” Fox leaned out of the tiny space. The technician effortlessly fished another from besides her, and soon Fox noticed General Pepper was wearing a similar one too. Fox moved to put it over his head, right in the exchange used for flight preparation that he used to know by heart.
“Are all the lights on?” The woman asked.
“Yes.” Falco replied, dubious.
“You will now hear a gust of wind all around you. Let me know if you can hear it and feel it.”
“Feel it?” Falco sounded strangely puzzled, and yelped for a moment. Fox chuckled. Newer sims came with directional sound – incredibly useful in the middle of a skirmish – and also the possibility of feeling things like wind and sometimes damage, all around the pilot. But that was a surprise he was not going to ruin for Falco.
At the end of the checklist, Falco was asked to push the door button he’d seen earlier, and the door closed behind him. The large screen over their head lit up, and Fox moved next to the technician and General to actually take a look at what Falco was doing.
He had a menu in front of himself. Something simple, to start the test.
Inside, it was completely soundproof. No matter what happened outside, Falco wouldn’t hear it. Except Fox tapped his microphone a handful of times, and Falco complained about it.
“Cut that out.”
“Good to know I’m wired in.” Fox commented.
“Yeah, don’t be too much of a backseat gamer, over there.” Falco replied, with a tone that conveyed perfectly the roll of his eyes.
“Oh, and here I was, planning to give you some help. Guess I’ll have to be silent then.”
Falco tskd. “No worries, I can do all of this by myself.”
“Please choose the difficulty of the mission.” Rose said a moment later, interrupting their back and forth.
Right. Fox almost didn’t remember that they weren’t in their own Arwings. There were here to do a job. Though, the General didn’t seem displeased. Fox cleared his throat.
“Uhm, General, is there any mission you’d prefer we try first?” He asked.
“Not at all. At the moment, there are only standard missions loaded… I’m sure you completed them too, in your time in the academy,” he explained. “Please pick whatever you prefer, Lombardi.”
There were four choices, one for each year of enrollment. With a bright yellow cursor over a sky blue background, Falco went all the way to the bottom to select the most difficult mission.
“Then we’re going with the hardest there is!” He exclaimed over the headsets.
Fox gently shook his head. But what was he to do? Falco was indeed his best pilot. And if Fox had managed to complete that mission, all those years ago, then Falco would be able to as well.
Though. Fox had had a lot more practice. Plenty of failed runs to grow experience on.
Well. Falco would figure that out on his own, or fall to his hubris.
“The bar in the top right corner is your shield gauge.” Rose explained through their headsets. “Over it are the amount of enemies you’ve shot down. The red hexagons you see are nova bombs the Arwing is equipped with. You will start with three and may acquire more if you see them. There will be randomly placed silver rings during the mission – collecting them will restore a bit of your health. Any questions?”
“Seems pretty straightforward to me.” Falco replied.
“How does it feel inside there?” Fox asked as the screen in front of Falco loaded. Now, with the mission having started, in the lower left corner, his portrait had appeared, just like it would be in a real Arwing. Falco mustn’t have noticed the camera yet, but they had a perfect view of his movements.
The avian shuffled a bit in his seat, stretched his neck and put himself into position, looking straight ahead.
“Very similar to a real Arwing, though the seat is not quite the same. But it’s fine.”
“Alright then.” Fox nodded.
“The mission has finished loading. Whenever you are ready, you may take off.”
Falco moved his hand to press a couple of switches. The oval he was in started vibrating – Fox could see it from the outside, but Falco didn’t seem bothered.
“Good luck.” General Pepper said by his side. In his little portrait, Falco smirked. Then he pushed his stick forward, his other hand flew to the boost, and he was taking off.
The movement was kind of guided. Rose told him he wouldn’t be allowed total freedom of movement in this version of the mission, and Falco huffed but nodded. There were a couple of very simple standard enemies to shoot down, the kind that simply put itself right in front of the aircraft and shot very simple shots, staying still. Falco quickly got rid of them with little fanfare.
“If this is how hard this ‘hard mission’ is, it’ll be a breeze!” He boasted.
He got higher and higher in the atmosphere. Fox noticed, after a soft and broken curse, that Falco was struggling to keep his Arwing steady. And even his view kept tilting to the side, moving erratically.
“Everything okay?” He asked immediately.
“Yeah, it’s just that the fricking thing won’t regulate the output!” He complained.
Fox halted a second.
“…Falco.”
“What?”
“…Did you check the G-diffusers?”
A quick glace down, then a movement in the makeshift cockpit, with Falco adjusting a few things on the side, and the Arwing was then flowing as majestically and as steadily as it was supposed to.
Fox almost didn’t believe it. They’d been flying with the Arwings for… how long was it? Three, almost four years? And Falco still forgot that?
“Well.” The pilot said after an awkward pause. “That’s one problem solved.”
“What a beginning…” Fox murmured under his breath.
The mission gradually got harder. Stronger waves of enemies appeared in his vision, and they started shooting… some of them literally aiming at him, forcing him to lose his position for a safer one lest he lose all his health. Rings popped every now and then, not that Falco had needed them up until that moment.
The computer started to get more advanced. In the beginning, most enemies would simply flee if Falco failed to get rid of them. Soon, when Falco looked down, Fox noticed strange dots reflecting in his eyes. Bogeys, and his friend was collecting them at an alarming rate. He managed to shake most of them off with acrobatics, as it was typical of him, but he couldn’t keep all of them at bay forever.
Until one shot actually connected with him, and the oval jerked violently to the side. Falco was moved forward by the momentum, and then back, but his grip on the stick remained steady and he managed to get out of that ordeal with a push of his boost.
“Ow.” He commented under his breath.
“They got ya, Falco?” Fox asked with mirth. He received a cocky smile in return.
“Just a lot more real than what I was expecting. One shot won’t be a problem.”
He moved around the field in all-range mode, caught some more bogeys but this time he braced himself to make a spectacular U-turn and surprise them from behind. None of them stood a single chance, they were shot down. He sent a bomb near a cluster of more enemies, sending them all on fire, and his hit count soon reached the fifty mark.
Fox was almost mesmerized. He knew Falco was good, but witnessing it in person, as if he was in the cockpit with him, was a whole other deal entirely. Falco lived and thrived in the air, in space, aboard and Arwing. He really did.
He was speechless for a good moment, just observing his wing mate and all the daredevil tricks he pulled.
“These U-turns don’t feel too bad.” Falco commented when he was finally catching a breather. “But they could be better…”
Because he was talking, he didn’t notice a thick line of enemies approaching in the distance. There must have been at least twenty-five of them… organized in a grid, so that Falco wouldn’t be able to push past them. And on his other side, he could see a similar formation. And on the other as well. He could only imagine what was happening behind him.
The formations boosted as one, and they all shot at Falco in the same moment, as not to leave him any room to save himself. He was about to receive too much damage!
“Do a barrel roll!” Fox shouted instinctively into the mic. Falco didn’t even take a look around himself before violently veering to the side, his hand flying to press another button as the index finger twitched around the stick, pressing a tiny button under it twice in extremely rapid succession.
The sphere in front of Fox shook again, turning on itself just like a real Arwing would do. Falco had braced himself, and just in time to see all of those incoming shots being reflected. He didn’t even have time to exhale a relieved sigh, that Falco had put his Arwing facing up and was running away for dear life. He got quite a few bogeys on his tail, but it was better than being in the middle of such harsh crossfire.
“Never do that again.” Fox still felt his heart thrumming in his chest. He knew it was a simulation, but he’d felt the tell-tale fear in any case.
“Don’t tell me. That barrel roll felt exactly the same.” Falco also sounded out of breath. “It’ll make me sick if I do it too much.”
Fox snorted into the mic. He wasn’t talking about the barrel roll at all. But perhaps he had gotten a bit too carried away.
“Hey, Fox.” Falco asked after having shot other enemies. They were starting to get smarter, and the loop technique was starting to lose efficacy.
“Yeah? Something wrong?”
“No, fine here. Just… we’ve been here a while. How long does this mission last?”
“Uh…” Fox looked around, but there were no easily discernible clocks anywhere he looked. And he also didn’t remember this mission as well as he’d thought. “I honestly don’t know.”
Another enemy squadron appeared on the edge of the screen, as rapidly advancing black dots. Falco huffed, and got back to work.
He boosted right in the middle of them, zipping past before they could lock onto him. With a charged shot, he managed to take a few out, and with a loop he laid eyes on the prizes they’d left floating in the air – nova bombs and a couple of rings. When having to choose between offense or defense, Falco always went for the attack. He aligned himself with the bomb, ignoring the rest.
Falco loved them, and he didn’t have anymore because of the extensive use. But, at the same time, Fox had to admit that no bomb had missed its target, and that he’d never taken out less than five enemies with one. So when Falco grabbed it, and pushed his stick to himself to make the simulated Arwing rapidly ascend, all while wearing that signature confident grin, Fox knew he was about to do something that would have gotten him kicked out of the Academy for even thinking of trying.
Falco performed a barrel roll to repel enemy fire, all while keeping his shots steady and taking out the two offenders. Then he realigned himself with the original line, observing them from another angle.
And then he planted the bomb. Dived onto it, and made it detonate. At the very last second, he barrel rolled again and headed down this time, in a lightning-quick movement. He heard the bomb explode behind him, but didn’t see it – if it wasn’t for the hit count in the corner of the screen, reaching proudly beyond the one-hundred with a chime.
Falco didn’t stop his onslaught there, though. He got on the tail of another flying enemy – and took out one more simply in passing. He dived right under one, before inflicting the finishing shots on the one he’d been tailing. It looked like a strange dance, calculated and at the same time reckless. Though, he had to admit, with all the experience Falco had, it certainly came easier to him to judge what perils he could and could not take on now.
Falco guided his Arwing almost effortlessly. He glided majestically into the air and destroyed enemies in the blink of an eye. Fox couldn’t help but be mesmerized. In a dogfight, he didn’t have much time to turn around and look at what his teammates were doing, not in the way that he could now. And he had a first-row view of what Falco was seeing, of the decisions he was taking!
“Whoa.” A feminine voice said besides him, voicing his exact thoughts. It was a dog, looking like a Cocker spaniel. Her fur was the most pristine of whites and she had a bright red bow over her head. Baby blue eyes were looking up at the screen in awe, and she was wearing a cadet’s light blue uniform.
Fox cleared his throat, looking up at the screen too.
“Yeah. He really is something.”
“So what, Fox? Did I ‘wing it’?” Falco said, voice crackling with amusement through his speaker.
“Oh shut up.” Fox replied, and Falco chuckled in his ear.
With the final bogey finally falling, Falco believed he had a moment to breathe. His shield gauge was a little below the halfway mark, and that was when Fox remembered the mission. He hated it, and he’d only been able to complete it two or three times during his academy days, because…
“An entire ARMY??” Falco almost shouted. He pushed on the brake, stopping to see the lines among lines among more lines of soldiers and aircrafts and giant ships forming on the horizon. They hadn’t locked on him yet, but it was only a matter of time. “Yo, Fox! I have no wing mates! How am I supposed to take down an entire army by myself?”
Fox groaned. “Sorry Falco. You’ll have to figure that out on your own.”
“Can’t you were yourself in or something?” Falco didn’t sound panicked, not yet, but the absurdity of the mission was starting to get to him.
“I thought you said you could do this all by yourself?” Fox replied.
“Well, yes, but I didn’t know I’d be taking on an army!”
Fox sighed. “I unfortunately can’t join your mission, Falco. You’re on your own.” He admitted, somewhat sadly.
“Bah…” The other huffed, stopping a moment to take a breather. He’d be needing it, Fox supposed. “Slippy would have found a way to get you in.”
Fox turned to his side. The girl that had been there earlier was gone, but it was easy to find her bow bobbing up and down among the crowd. She was now next to a feline, a lynx, and they were commenting the images on the screen. Like plenty of others.
Lessons must have ended. Thinking about it, they might have been at this for an half an hour or something like that… which meant it was lunch break for the cadets. They’d all met up in the great hall and found that spectacle. Most of them were eating their lunches, cross-legged on the floor or on the tables, watching intently.
“Do you think he’s going to make it?” A penguin asked his group of friends.
“Doubt it, he’s got too little health left.”
“Well… he could try to boost through everything.”
“And then get caught in double the crossfire, yeah, great idea.”
“I have to admit… taking out that many enemies wouldn’t be possible even with the use of a bomb, and he’s all by himself!”
When Fox turned back around, he found Falco frowning in the direction of the enemies. That was one of the other things Fox hated about that mission… but about plenty of missions in general. The fact that he was alone.
But Falco wasn’t, not truly.
“I’m here for you now, Falco. You ready?” He said, over the headset. It wasn’t much, but he hoped it would relieve Falco of at least some of his problems.
The avian zeroed in on the approaching enemies in front of him. He brought a hand up to his headset, as if holding it closer.
“Bring it on.” He murmured into it, and then he was off.
Falco boosted right into the formation. Some of them did not see him coming and crashed against one another in a vain effort to get out of his way. Once he was out of the first line, Falco launched a bomb right in front of himself. At Fox’s command he avoided more fire with a barrel roll, though it threw him off course and then got him some bogeys.
Fox hissed under his breath. It was a mistake.
“No worries, I can take care of it.” Falco assured him from the other side. He barrel rolled again, and his grip on the stick tightened before pulling it violently towards himself and doing a u-turn from when he was already looking up, letting him have enough leeway to shoot at some of his pursuers. They exploded in a gust of smoke, and Fox sighed a breath of relief.
“There’s no way!” Another voice said next to him. It was the lynx this time, wearing a magenta suit that separated her from the others. She must have been a year older, then.
Her white dog friend was right on her other side, pointing at the screen excitedly.
“Right?? I told you!”
On radar, Falco was getting surrounded again. He was fighting to take as little damage as possible, but the shots were just too many, coming from everywhere. Falco braked just in time to see a ship heading straight for him miss him by mere inches, and he managed to circumnavigate around it, sending it into a cluster of enemies instead.
Though he was still shaken by the next shot he took. And those bogeys were not messing around, Falco didn’t have much health left!
Fox suddenly remembered the objective of this particular mission was never to defeat all the enemies. It was the final stretch, which meant just reaching the goal would suffice! Though Falco should be able to see that by himself. It was also true that more hits meant more points, which would have meant a better grade. But Falco should simply be focusing on finishing it.
“Falco, you should—” Fox said, but he was interrupted by his own gasp. Falco had twenty, if not more, bogeys following him. “Look out, behind you!”
“I see ‘em, Fox!” Falco replied, slightly annoyed. But even then, he wasn’t barrel rolling or making dangerous maneuvers to try and shake them off. For a moment Fox was worried his friend might be at his limit, or out of ideas.
Then he looked in front of him, watched as Falco jerked the level to one side, and then the other, finger already tapping on the barrel roll button, and it clicked for him.
He was going to do something terribly reckless. Fox was feeling his heart pump in his ears again. Then he had to remind himself it was just a simulation, though it did little to calm the drum solo in his head.
Falco made his Arwing sway. He then pulled the stick towards himself, violently, causing the Arwing to move even more erratically. One shot hit him from behind, a lucky hit, and though the sphere jerked Falco didn’t lose his focus.
“What…?” Someone from the crowd behind Fox said.
“What’s he trying to do…?” The lynx murmured under her breath. The white dog soon followed.
“It makes no sense…”
Falco suddenly looped. At the apex of his U-turn, he pushed the boost and dived straight into the messy formation of bogeys trailing him. He stopped his boost barely enough time to unleash a bomb, and then boosted again, faster than before with the previous momentum, diving under it. The bogeys were shooting at him, he barrel rolled at the highest speed to evade some of the inevitable damage.
The bogeys, though, reacted in time. They formed a hole in their formation, just big enough for the nova bomb to slip through without it detonating.
The entire room behind Fox gasped in despair. But Falco was barrel rolling again, this time using the momentum in order to take in his surroundings better. And when he located the bomb, still close enough to the enemies to be effective, he righted his Arwing with a push that came from manually adjusting the G-diffusers in the heat of the moment, that aligned him just right to shoot a single shot… and hit the bomb straight where it was.
It exploded, and Falco used the brakes to kill the engine and then pushed it back as much as he could, desperately trying to get out of the blast radius.
His hit count shot up of around thirty points just in that, definitely sending him over two-hundred. His gauge, though, was flashing red.
But Fox couldn’t tell him what he needed to do. He was just speechless because of what he’d just witnessed.
With the worst coming to an end, Falco managed to isolate and take out other targets – including one of the large ships that had come to aid the enemy faction. He took off all of their offensive potential, all of its cannons and then watched as it crumbled. Finally managing to take his eyes off of his targets, Falco noticed the goal. The end of the mission.
He simply had to reach it.
“Over there!” Both Fox and Falco shouted as one.
Not a second later, Fox heard the lynx cackle beyond his headset.
“Oh, he’s in for a bad surprise…”
“I hope he makes it…!” The dog pleaded instead, with her hands clasped in front of herself.
“What do you…” When Fox looked back up at the screen, his breath hitched.
There was a missile, heading straight for Falco.
“Four o’clock!” He shouted into his ear, and Falco immediately moved to look there. He braked, and veered to the side, and the underbelly of the simulated Arwing barely missed the head of the missile. Then, turning with his boost going at max, he was off again.
More bogeys found their places on his tail. Falco had stalled for time, and the enemy had regrouped. Falco barrel rolled, instinctively, but his health was so depleted that only the tiniest bit of red was barely visible. Just one pixel. The later half of the mission had been stingy while handing out silver rings, too. Neither Fox nor Falco had seen them in quite a while.
Falco pushed towards the goal again. Another missile came into view, but this time he decided to press on. Enemies got in his way, forcing him to dodge and make second-split decision on what path to take, all while boosting to the maximum of his capabilities. If he lost just a single inch, he might be done for. The missile was slightly faster than him and, with a lump stuck in his throat, Fox knew it was gaining on Falco.
The goal was just within reach. Falco barrel rolled to the side, once more, to avoid another shot Fox hadn’t even seen coming. But it cost him some speed, and before Fox could blink…
The entire room behind him exploded in cheer, and Fox too jumped in place. The bright yellow ‘mission accomplished’ text had appeared, and Falco had finally managed to finish it!
“You did it!” He complimented into his ear.
In the portrait, right before it disappeared, Falco deflated in his seat.
“I… I did it!”
“A last-year cadet?” Someone else asked from the sidelines, probably the penguin from earlier.
“No way, Bluck! It must have been a teacher…”
“So, so? Who was it??” The white dog asked her friend, with a bright smile.
“What? Haven’t you seen him? Don’t you realize who he is?” The lynx questioned, surprised, jabbing her finger towards Fox. He couldn’t help but chuckle as the dog’s eyes finally settled on him and seemed to only know realize who she’d been talking about.
“Hold up, what about the score?” Another voice asked.
“And more importantly, the ranking!”
The white ovoid opened and Falco walked out. He seemed rather surprised to see the great hall, now full of people cheering loudly, despite the teachers trying to have them keep composure.
Though Falco wasn’t too affected. He gave them a bright smile, as handsome as the one of a model, fixed his jacket over his shoulders, and with confident strides walked right next to Fox. As if he was a movie star. Some of the cadets ended up with their mouths agape, more celebrated louder.
When he came close to Fox, he noticed Falco smelled only faintly of sweat, and some of his feathers were peeking in every direction.
“Would you look at that! Great job, Falco!” Fox celebrated, punching him lightly in the shoulder. Falco huffed out a laugh, then leaned in to whisper:
“Yeah, yeah. Just… uh, where did all this people come from?”
“They’re cadets here at the academy. They got lured in by your breathtaking techniques!” He replied, punching him in the arm again. Falco looked ready to make it a sparring match, especially with the tension he must have accumulated by standing still in that cockpit all that time…
But he was instead interrupted by a sort of solemn melody coming from the simulator. He turned around until he was facing the big screen, like the rest of the people. There was a number, his hit point counter, shining brightly in the middle of it all. Confetti and golden flares enveloped the screen as the music continued.
Oh. Oh.
“Uh, what’s happening?” Falco asked, puzzled.
“You… just engraved your name in the records of the Academy.” Fox said, under his breath, his mouth agape in shock. It wasn’t long before the screen changed, showing instead a list. A rank.
And Falco’s latest hit score was on top of it all, along with his name and surname. There was apparently another field that should be filled, a number or something, but he didn’t have anything. He wasn’t officially part of the Academy after all.
And yet he’d just put his name on it, until someone was good enough to beat him…
“Ha! I came in first!” Falco rejoiced besides him.
“You almost sound surprised.” Fox sing-songed by his side. He had to admit, he’d been good. Yet, when Falco turned, there was a coy glint in his eyes, one that almost startled Fox.
“Read who’s second now, Foxie boy.”
“Huh?” Fox looked up, to the leader board still twinkling festively for everyone to see. The name under Falco, next to a silver ‘2’, was…
“No. Way!” He couldn’t help but shout. That… that was Fox’s record! Dating back when he was still in the academy!
“Yes way. I beat you!” Falco pointed his finger towards him, tormenting his arms with light punches, chuckling all the while.
“No, no no no! That’s a very, very old record! If I were to retake it now, I’m sure I’d destroy yours!” Fox defended himself.
“Sure, huh?” Falco challenged him. Fox crossed his hands, leaning in.
“One-hundred percent.”
Falco hummed. Then he made a show of showing the sim with his outstretched wing. “By all means then. Try it.”
Fox couldn’t ignore such a straightforward request. He started rolling up his sleeves.
“Bring it on!”
General Pepper cleared his throat, trying to calm them down.
“Ah, perhaps we should take a break…”
“Absolutely not, General! One mission isn’t enough to make sure the sim is working properly! I’ll make sure to get a second opinion!” Fox exclaimed, straightening his back and heading for the sim.
Falco was still pumped up. “Let’s see how close you can get to my record!”
The General could only sigh, and he nodded to the woman at the control desk awaiting his command. The hall cheered again behind them. The hatch began to close as Fox replied to her questions.
It was only the first of their many, many runs on that simulator that day.