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META AN:

I'm posting this here, directly copying and pasting from fanfiction.net, which was the original target site.

I'm Tiel, a newcomer to SoFurry. I've been writing for a long enough time to just want to write things and post them. You can find me on fanfiction.net with the same username, tldrOtter. I did a Fox/Wolf fic called Recruitment Drive, which is posted there. I always meant to go back and polish it, but it's been a year, and I don't think that's going to happen.

This new fic will involve far less moping and far less editing. Hopefully, it'll still be worth reading.

Below is the content posted to fanfiction.net:

AN: It's been a long, long, long time now. What, a year?

I strongly considered making this fic a sequel, but a lot has changed since I concluded the last fic. I've had relationships and breakups, ups and downs, busyness and boredom, and I've rethought the way the last fic went and how it was presented.

I intend to make this fic a little more emotionally honest, and a little more haphazard than the last one. That means I'm going to try a lot harder to just not care so much if I happen to not meet my unrealistic standards for myself. I'm also not going to expect other people to help, or to motivate me to continue, and instead I'll just write when I feel like it, and not force myself.

The last fic I wrote was a love letter from me to the Star Fox fandom. I want to make it clear that this one is nothing of the sort.

I've realized that I'm a lot more like my version of Wolf than I ever gave myself credit for, and that writing in first person would both be the easiest way to express what I want from this story, and also the most natural way for me to narrate it. I also have a new interpretation of both Fox and Falco thanks to playing and watching a shit ton of Melee, and I _love _the new interpretations I've made.

I've also based the setting for this new fic heavily on my locale, and stolen bits and pieces from my work life and day-to-day findings. I want to put a lot of reality and a lot of heart into what I put out for you to read.

I can't exactly specify why I'm doing this fic, but I at least believe that my heart is, for once, in the right place. And with that being said, every review helps push me toward spending just a little more time on the next chapter (and I promise I have good things in store for future chapters).

Thank you all for reading, and I hope this fic becomes at least as enjoyable as the last one.

---

I landed my ship on the Space Dynamics runway, halfway expecting a trap. Sure, I'd just been legally absolved of all guilt, and sure, I'd also been promised safety by none other than the one and only Fox McCloud, but none of that changed my expectations.

Perhaps I'd become so used to dealing with the wrong crowd that when someone actually kept a promise, it came as a surprise. But then, hell, how could I not be surprised? Despite nominally disliking me, they were _insistent _on having me fly my Wolfen straight from orbit down to Space Dynamics headquarters, surrounded by Lylat's secret weapon tech, which had to be the worst possible place for them to take a potential danger. They even lowered the defense turrets, just to make sure I didn't get cold feet as I flew in.

Given that they seemed to have made the planet stand still just to get me to them as soon as possible, I expected all of Team Star Fox to come out and bring me up to speed.

To my dismay, the one to greet me just happened to be a familiar whiny, effeminate toad.

"You made it!" he exclaimed. He seemed surprisingly happy... relieved? Relieved to see me, aside from the inevitable fear in his eyes whenever they looked up from his feet to make contact with mine?

"Hard to resist when a McCloud summons for me," I replied, hopping out of my cockpit. As I stepped a little closer to the toad, wearing my usual public poker face, I noticed Slippy flinching, looking further down, halfheartedly trying to make me disappear just by refusing to look.

It felt mean of me, but he'd made it so easy that I _had _to fuck with him.

"Brave of you to come greet me alone, though. What if a dangerous space pilot still has scary ambitions? I've been pardoned by the Senate, but do you _really _think I've changed?"

It didn't matter to me what he thought, nor was I concerned with whether or not a whiny little shit trusted me.

Slippy gulped, trembled a little, and give me any more than that to work off of. I almost felt robbed.

"I'm not afraid of you," he said. There was no conviction in his voice, but also hardly any fear. It sounded rehearsed, like his mind wasn't actually present, and I realized I wouldn't get anywhere.

"I doubt that," I snorted. "But enough of that. I'm not here to see you. Where are McCloud and the featherbrain?"

"Indoors, where it's safe," Slippy replied. "Where's Leon?"

I cocked my ears, caught a little off guard both by his implications and by his question.

"Shit. I don't know. It's been months. Was I supposed to find him or something? The voicemail said to come here as soon as I could."

Slippy shrugged.

"Last I heard, no one knows where to find him. Maybe that's a good thing?" He said it as if I might know what was on his mind, almost even as if I weren't even there. "I'll take you indoors."

The place was almost built like a defensive outpost, despite being a development center. Unfortunately, that meant metal shielding for the walls, which completely eliminated what signal my comms had, which put me a little more on edge than I already was.

Similarly, the lack of windows had us reliant on dim, sparse fluorescent lights, which hummed a low noise from above. The place reeked of metalshop gear, complete with grease smells and scraps of metal intermittently strewn about the dirty stone floor.

Before long, we were downstairs, where the floor was at least tiled, but the lighting was still awful and the layout made little intuitive sense. The toad expertly traversed long, winding hallways that all looked exactly the same to me.

Between the lack of signal and the labyrinthine interior of the place, it felt _way _too much like a trap. I had to tell myself that if Fox or Corneria wanted me dead, they'd have sent someone stronger to fetch me, and they'd certainly have tried something by now instead of just luring me to get lost in some stupid maze.

Too many turns after heading downstairs, a large, strong-looking metal door with a number pad at its side stood in our way. Slippy typed in six digits, and it slid loudly open, turning on a series of blinking red warning lights on each side of it.

"Hey, could you put your index finger paw pad on the... I mean, if you don't mind-"

I'd done it before, long ago.

I found the scanner right beside the number pad and put my finger on it. The red lights turned off. Slippy motioned for me to follow him through the door, down the subsequent stairs, and then finally through one more door.

There he was. Fox McCloud. Hero of Lylat, walking trouble magnet, and my worthy rival ever since the day I made the mistake of assuming he couldn't put up a better fight than his dad did. He looked just like he always did-intent, energetic, collected, confident. He was every bit like the hot piece of ass no living soul would be fool enough to turn down, and he held himself like he knew it.

Naturally, his longtime copilot was along. The bird towered half a foot over Fox, putting him at about my height. His presence somehow made Fox's stoic expression a little bit less worrisome, considering how little Falco seemed to care about anything, and how uninhibited he was about showing it.

There was one more figure in the room, and recognizing him made the fur stand up on the back of my neck. Seeing the older toad in person usually meant that we were in for some particularly bad news.

"You made it," Fox acknowledged. "Any word from Leon?"

I shook my head.

"Guess it's just us, then," Falco said. "Sad shit. Gonna have to get myself a violin and play a little song for his funeral, huh?"

"Don't get your hopes up just yet," Fox said. "Maybe if we can't find him, neither can they. And maybe no one's looking for him anyway."

I growled beneath my breath.

"Not that this isn't fascinating or anything, but would one of you mind telling me what the fuck is going on here? Who's looking for Leon, and why was I brought down here?"

"Calm your tits, would ya?" Falco said. "We're still figuring things out ourselves, and a lot of it depended on whether or not your lizard buddy came along."

"He's never been my buddy," I replied. I spoke with utmost certainty; Andross had found Leon in a remote bar, and with him being as decent pilot a pilot as he'd promised, he became a desperation pick. Somehow, he'd just happened to enjoy my line of work enough to stick around for as long as I needed him, and once the Aparoid crisis was over... well, that was that.

Beltino Toad had remained silent for all that time, and I'd have preferred it if he'd stayed that way, or just chimed in to tell us how busy he was working on something trivial and overly technical. Naturally, though, his silence just wasn't meant to last.

"There's no point waiting on him if none of us have heard a word of response," the old toad said. He turned to Slippy and nodded at his son. "Slippy, go ahead and finish up what you started back at the bench. I'll bring Mr. O'Donnell up to speed and we'll discuss the proposed solution to the crisis at hand."

He hesitated for a moment, but Slippy took a look at Fox, saw him nod, and headed back upstairs without a word.

The older toad spoke as soon as the door slid shut.

"To get straight to the point, Andrew Oikonny was killed," Beltino said. "The responsible party has been apprehended and seems perfectly normal in all respects."

"Responsible party?" I asked.

"Party of one," Fox clarified.

Beltino sighed loudly.

"Yes, yes, always with the trouble for semantics and legalese. Never seems to matter to you folks if I'm correct," he groused. "At any rate, the responsible party is one former Cornerian soldier, and it happens that he has no memory of killing the young monkey who woke him from years of stasis."

Woke him? From stasis?

I patiently kept my mouth shut, though it gave me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach as the toad paused for a question that never came.

"With a face like that, I gotta wonder whether you're more concerned with seeing whoever did it, or wondering why we think he should care," Falco said.

"Perhaps I'd like to know why you had me fly all the way out here," I countered.

"Don't care about your old teammate, huh? Ain't planning on speaking at his funeral?"

I paused, trying to tell whether or not the bird was remotely serious. It seemed as though he meant it, so my answer was concise.

"No."

"Harsh."

Beltino loudly cleared his throat, prompting Falco to roll his eyes and shut his beak.

"You've been brought here as a courtesy," the old toad said. "It's no secret that most of Corneria thinks you're no good, and I'm no exception. However, Team Star Fox has insisted that out of gratitude for your heroism during the Aparoid crisis, we show concern for your life, as well as the lives of your team."

"_Team Star Fox?" _I asked, staring at the bird. "Why do I get the feeling that I owe my legal standing solely to the leader?"

"Ain't how it went down," Falco said. "Though I gotta say, the more you talk, the more I regret doing you the favor. Hell, you ain't even made it easy to save your ass again now."

I shrugged, but the bird still waited, like he was baiting me, hoping to make me squirm. It wasn't working, but out of impatience, I decided to give him the satisfaction anyway.

"Okay, I'll bite. From what?"

Falco shrugged.

Beltino, meanwhile, pursed his lips and took a deep, nervous nostril breath.

No one spoke until finally Fox, just as impatient as I was with the grandstanding, spoke for him.

"It's not that hard to spit out," he said. "Andross. He wants us all dead."

It caught me off guard. I snorted, and even cracked a grin.

"Good one," I chuckled.

Then I waited, and faced more silence. I furrowed my eyebrows at Fox, who only answered my irritation with a confused face and more silence.

They'd tried my patience. By that point, I was fed up.

"You're talking bullshit," I growled. "Andross is dead. That son of a bitch cheated death enough times to have no more cheats left, and you all can fuck my ass if I'm wrong. I've already personally _scoured his old domain for any way he might come back, and there _are none. No Krazoa Spirit tricks. No robotic brains. And I found his old underwater Zoness revival facility and purged it of every trace of his DNA, just in case some freak-ass spiritualist decided to go finish his work and somehow get a soul into a synthetic Andross husk. I'm confident that you didn't bring me here for a stupid prank, so tell me what's really going on."

Beltino took a glance at Fox, who in turn glanced at Falco, who rolled his eyes yet again, reached for subtle fabric on the wall and stripped it off.

The room, as it turned out, was bigger than I'd thought. Where I'd seen bare wall, there had actually been fabric covering a cage of thick glass, and on the inside was a Cornerian dog in the familiar pilot uniform.

He looked perfectly normal, though he wore a uniform that Corneria had retired quite a few years ago. I'd shot down many, many dogs just like him, many years ago, and memories of those times made me wonder whether or not he'd been locked up because I'd killed his brother or something, and if it weren't for the glass, he'd be at my throat... not that Corneria's lot was much of a threat to me.

Once he looked over our way, I realized that there were better reasons as to why he'd been locked up.

He saw me first, as well as Fox and Falco, and I saw the alarm on his face as he recognized... one of us, at least?

His eyes fixated on a flinching Beltino, though, and everything changed. The confusion on the dog's face faded in a matter of seconds and gave way to savagery. He snarled behind sharp, bared teeth, and he lumbered over, moving more sharply and powerfully than his frame should have allowed, toward the barrier that stood between him and, no doubt, his target.

The dog probed at the wall for any sort of give, and finding none, he growled. Then he barked and snapped, repeatedly ramming the glass with his shoulders, sometimes hard enough to induce what looked like serious pain on himself.

On our side of the glass, it was silent aside from Fox and Falco reacting to the dog's pain with laughably strong empathy. It didn't even take half a minute for Fox to throw in the towel and strap the cover back to the velcro that stuck to the top of the glass, after which the muffled thumping against the glass weakened and eventually stopped entirely.

There was grave silence, aside from Beltino's labored breaths.

"Shit," I commented. "What did you do to earn that kind of treatment?"

"Headed a prominent Space Dynamics development team that Andross wanted to terminate," Fox replied. "He's not the only one who did something wrong, though. I was James McCloud's son. And Andrew was heir to Andross's throne. Any of us could've been a threat to him, so he got his hands on our DNA, ran it through some freaky process, and conditioned a few select prisoners into unwitting assassins who would put an end to anyone he considered a threat. And you-"

"I was the one he was most afraid of, especially if your pops was out of the picture by then," I said with full confidence. "So he saved the worst danger for me. Is that what you're going to say?"

Beltino, still not fully composed, at least tried to find his footing.

"That would be the safe assumption," he said, stuttering twice on the word safe. "There's no way for us to know for certain. We can only infer from the five stasis chambers that there were five former soldiers with that kind of bloodlust for one particular target each, and there's no record of who those five are, who they hope to kill, or where they went, nor do we even have a guess at what they look like."

I gestured toward the re-blocked wall.

"You try asking him yet?"

"Slips gave it a shot first, but it was almost as bad as what Beltino just got. Think it might be their shared genetics," Falco replied. "Then the two of us gave it a shot, and it didn't go so badly. Guy seems pretty normal, can't seem to tell how badly he wants to kill some toads until they're in his sight. But for all that obliviousness, he somehow ended here, caught by Space Dynamics security in the middle of a freaky, bloodthirsty rush. Ain't something I'd expect to see from a boring physique like his, either."

"Andrew woke these guys up from stasis pods because he thought they'd help him make his uncle's empire happen again," Fox added. "From what our prisoner told us, he opened all five pods up. Then he woke every sleeper agent up, and one of them murdered him shortly after. Thanks to our prisoner, we've learned a bit about these escaped menaces. Mainly, none of them realize they're sleeper agents, and everyone present thought the assassin meant for Andrew was just some savage animal, and not another of Andross's victims, broken down and conditioned to lose his mind and murder his awakener."

I snorted. A fool like Andrew had earned that fate.

"So how'd this one end up here at Space Dynamics, anyway? I assume Corneria isn't where they all got woken up."

Beltino hummed and hawed before finally spitting out a nominal response.

"The only answer we can give is that he targeted us," Beltino said. "Subconsciously, Andross's victims move toward their intended targets. Then some sort of trigger will lead them within striking distance, and that's where they snap, possessed by reckless aggression that ignores self-preservation and defies the body's physical limits."

"All subconsciously, huh?" I said.

"Seems so. That's where it gets scary," Fox said, his face full of a concern that actually made me wonder if I should be more worried than I was. "And also why we had to talk about this in person, with only the four of us within earshot. There's no way of knowing how they'll sniff their targets out, and it even seems like this one had no idea who he was looking for until something compelled him to break in and security caught him. Similar things could just happen to any of the targets, especially if we make our locations known to the public. We thought about it for a while and we think we have a good guess at who the targets are, and a plan to catch the assailants before they can get to any of us. But it also relies on your cooperation, which is mostly why you're here in the first place."

"My cooperation, huh?" I said. "Am I the bait? Has Andross made them all to target me, all because out of every threat to his empire, I was the one that scared him the most?"

Fox chuckled, shaking his head.

"I knew you were full of yourself, Wolf, but damn."

If you had a fucking clue what I went through because Andross feared me, pup...

"You ain't that far off, though," Falco said. "We got ourselves an idea that won't work unless we're all in on it, and we're _all _the bait. Relies on us not being seen."

Having heard enough from the Star Fox boys, Beltino couldn't contain himself anymore.

"The plan is simple, but nearly foolproof," Beltino said, immediately clueing me in on just who had thought it up. "Word spreads that Space Dynamics is holding top pilots, all of whom are yourselves, in the confines of this facility for testing on a top secret technological breakthrough. The same instinct that drove our prisoner to intrude on this base, will drive the rest of them into our state-of-the-art security system. Meanwhile, you'll be hidden far away in a safe location, in case anyone is crafty enough to get to your supposed testing bunker. All you have to do is sit back, away from the public eye, and wait."

I snorted.

Seriously? Proposing that we wait here like prisoners? I had half a mind to start walking out on him, partly for posturing, and partly to make sure I hadn't been locked in.

"Care to guess why that's not happening?" I said, prompting a flinch from the old toad.

"Wonder how a well-mannered guy like you makes so many enemies," Falco remarked. "Seriously? He ain't done yet, and you gotta shoot him down already?"

Falco took a long enough breath for Fox to mercifully interrupt the bird.

"We're asking you to wait with us, out of the public eye. That much is probably obvious at this point," Fox said. "The part you probably didn't assume, though, was that we're not asking you do hide here. Or even on Corneria, necessarily. Falco and I have been working on disguises with Slippy since we got here, and we're pretty sure we could pass as completely different species. All we need is the three of us guarding each other's backs in case somehow, one of our pursuers tracks us far from where the news said we'd be."

I raised an open palm to about neck height, and Fox acknowledged the gesture with a pause.

"When you say wait with us, what exactly do you mean?" I asked. "I want details."

Falco pointed at Fox, rolling his eyes.

"Him. You. Me," the bird said. "Same roof, all three of us. Some planet that ain't Corneria. Gotta stick close so we know we ain't gotten picked off one by one. Wanna ask me why the sky's blue? I could do this all day."

"It's important that you all stay together and watch for any funny business," Beltino asserted. "Just in case our trap fails and one of you is found, any injury or disappearance will at least be a warning for the others." His tone sharpened. "And then it's back to Space Dynamics headquarters for whoever remains. No further arguments on the matter, and no thumbing our noses at the dangers of Andross's old work."

The old toad's worried nanny act was more along the vibe I'd expected, and he even sounded a little upset at letting us free to begin with. I chuckled to myself, assuming that Team Star Fox had managed to convince him that captivity was no life for a mercenary crew. Considering that there was no mention of Slippy joining us, I almost felt sorry for the son over whatever fearmongering his father had thrown at him to keep him on Corneria.

"And you haven't decided where this hiding place would be?" I asked.

Fox slouched a bit, his ears sinking backward against his head.

"To be honest, we didn't get that far," he said. "We spent most of our time trying to find some way to talk to you in the first place. I didn't think you'd just show up on an invite."

I snorted.

"I'm full of surprises," I said. "Really, though? I flew all the way out here and you don't know where you want me to stay for the next few months?

"Before we get that far, we gotta know whether or not you're in," Falco agreed. "Ain't easy for a guy like you. Letting go of your big bad wolf act, dyeing your fur, adopting a new name without the Lord title, and living like the common folk just doesn't sound like your cup of tea."

I was on the spot, with a toad, a pheasant, and a fox all focused on me, expecting me to commit an indefinite amount of time to living with them, far from the public eye.

They didn't know what I'd been up to since the senate cleared my bounty. They didn't know what my plans were, or where I might want to go, or what living with me would be like. And amusingly, they didn't have a damn clue that coincidence was on my side.

Laying low would be the easiest thing in the world.

It didn't take long for me to make up my mind, but I cracked a smile as I relished taking a few extra seconds to compose my answer anyway.

"This room isn't being recorded whatsoever, correct?" I said. "Whatever I say here will stay between the four of us? General Pepper won't come hounding my ass when he gets out of the hospital?"

Three heads nodded.

"Then we're all set," I replied. "Planet of Ventura, along the outer edge of Lylat. Ventura City. Head to the pier close to Coastal Foam coffee shop. Check toward shore for the vintage-looking spaceship just out of the sand. Knock eight times, then wait five seconds and knock eight more times. The weird knock is so I don't have to waste my time getting the door for solicitors while I wait on you."

"Uh... what?" Falco said, breaking a solid ten seconds of what had to be uncomfortable silence.

"Did I stutter?"

Falco put on a testy look and took a pronounced step toward me.

"Maybe you're about to wish you did."

"Really, though. Wolf, are you serious?" Fox interjected, putting himself between me and the bird. "If this is a joke, this is a bad time for it. If we pack up for Ventura and you head anywhere else and happen to get recognized... well, I mean, Andross is involved here. This is no situation to take any chances for a dumb prank. Plus, if they find you far from where the news said you'd be, then-"

I walked toward the door, talking back at Fox without turning around to make eye contact.

"Unbunch your panties. This isn't my first rodeo. I'm going to get the place ready and wait on you guys. That's Coastal Foam, the coffee shop. If you're as concerned as you say you are, pack what you think you need and find me at my place."

"Bullshit," Falco called as I made my way through the sliding door and up the stairs. "Bet you don't have a place on some beach planet I ain't been to. Bet you don't even have a disguise ready."

"If I'm supposed to believe you guys, my ass is on the line, too. See for yourself that I'm not making it up," I said. "As for keeping my identity secret, I've avoided being captured by Lylat for nearly half of my life at this point. Worry about your own discretion."

They _hadn't _locked me in. I left, only to realize that I had no idea to get out of the complex. Fortunately, I smelled a familiar younger toad, whom I quickly located.

"Mind showing-"

"Sorry, Wolf," Slippy said. "Dad says I'm not supposed to let you talk. The fewer ears that conversation reaches, the better off we all are. Follow me to your ship."

---

AN: More to come.

As of this chapter being posted, chapters 2 and 3 are both written most of the way through, and need a lot of adjusting before I'll be satisfied enough to post them.

That could be a weekend, or a month.

I'll try to be timely. Feedback is welcome and very much appreciated. Expressed interest in the fic will motivate me. Reviews will coerce me to write faster, and also possibly better.