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Star Fox: Reborn

Chapter Three: In The Wolf's Den

"It's dark," Cody Millett commented.

"Really, genius? I couldn't tell," Katt fired back sarcastically.

"You're a cat, can't you see in the bloody dark?" James asked.

"Not when there's no light at all," Katt hissed. "Let us go!"

"That didn't work the first sixty times, why would it work now?" James growled. "Now please just shut up, would you?" His voice had an edge of nervousness in it, probably because he couldn't see the prisoners he guarded.

"Scared of the dark?" Dax's voice rumbled from the far corner of the room.

A snicker came from James's direction. "Of course not."

"No?" Gray asked, wriggling loudly and scratching the rough stone floor with a claw.

James cringed, though no one could see it. His paw went instinctively to the blaster on his thigh. "Oi!" he hissed. "No moving!"

"No moving?" Gray mocked. "How are you gonna stop us? You gonna shoot us?" he jeered, scraping the floor with all his claws.

"Kid," Dax warned.

"This puppy's not messing around, Gray," Cody supplied in the same tone as Dax.

"I'll do it! Ransom or no ransom!" James roared, ripping his blaster out of its holster.

Gray stopped. "Ransom! There ya go! That wasn't so hard, now, was it?" he snickered, proud of himself.

"What?" James breathed, confused. He holstered his gun and leaned back against the wall.

"I just wanted to know why we were here," Gray said simply, not sure where the voice was coming from. The room must have been small; their voices bounced off the walls and made it hard to pinpoint exact noise origins. This is what had put James on edge. He couldn't tell if someone was right next to him or across the room.

"So you thought the best way to do that would be to get me to almost blow your head off?" James asked.

Gray shrugged, and then remembered no one could see him. "I figured if I got you scared, you'd open up a bit. Besides, you can't see me. You'd never hit me even if you fired."

James merely growled in response.

"You could have just asked," Dax muttered.

"Wouldn't have been as much fun," Gray pointed out.

Katrina sighed. "You're such an idiot sometimes, know that?"

Gray smiled to himself. "Yeah."

"All right, shut up!" James cried, bashing his fist off the wall he was leaning on.

"Problem, James?" a deep rumble came from the middle of the room. A blinding light tore through the inky darkness, making the team flinch.

"N-no, sir!" James stuttered, staggering around the newly-lit room.

Gray took the opportunity to get stock of the room. His heart fell a mile as his eyes found Darco, unconscious in the corner. Gray couldn't tell if the bird was tied up; his wings were under him. He scanned the rest of the room. The size was as he guessed--small. The longer walls of the rectangular room were about twenty feet from corner to corner; the small walls were maybe ten feet. The beige-colored stone was no surprise--he'd known it was stone since he woke up. The color failed to be any surprise, either; it was merely a cleaner, brighter color than the exterior of the temple. The ceiling weighed down on them oppressively, about six and a half feet above them. The wolf in the center of the room hunched over; his head would be scraping the stone of the ceiling if he weren't. He stood in front of a light-emitting disc on the floor; looking directly at the thing nearly blinded Gray.

"So, this is what Corneria sends us. A Third Division team of misfits. How much do you suppose we can get for them, James?" the wolf asked.

"Uhm...Not a lot...except for the two McClouds. And the Lombardi, over there," James mumbled weakly.

"McClouds?" the wolf asked, interested. He yanked Gray to his feet by his collar. "This one?"

James bit his lip nervously.

"Well?!" the wolf barked. Gray flinched and cowered a bit.

"Y-yes, sir. He looks like a McCloud, anyway," James remarked.

The wolf nodded. "Well...Do I look like an O'Donnell to you?" he asked Gray softly.

"Y-yes," Gray struggled, his twisted collar choking him.

"Louder!" the wolf howled, lifting Gray up so he could make direct eye contact.

Gray simply smiled, his cowardice suddenly evaporating.

"Gonna kiss me?" he asked, his smile turning into a laugh.

The wolf snarled and head-butted Gray--hard. Gray saw stars briefly, but barely managed to feel any pain. Unconscious, the fox fell to the floor as the wolf let him go.

"Anyone else have a smart remark?" he asked, turning in a full circle around the room.

"I do," Dax growled.

"What's that?" the wolf leaned in close to Dax.

"Bite me," Dax growled and lashed out with a ferocious kick. It hit the taller wolf square in the diaphragm, knocking the wind from the lungs and forcing him over. Unfortunately for Dax, his bonds meant he couldn't use his hands to balance and he tumbled into the taller canine. The wolf roared and threw a wild uppercut at Dax's jaw. Had it landed, Dax would likely have lost most of his teeth, but he managed to swerve out of the way. He landed flat on his face. The wolf put a boot on the fox's spine, about halfway down his back.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't snap you like a twig," the wolf hissed in Dax's ear.

"No one pays for broken toys," Dax spat back.

"Hahaha! Clever! Clever fox! I like that," the wolf laughed, pulling Dax to his feet. The wolf took in a few deep breaths to get his wind back and hopped up and down--the kick had sent the adrenaline flowing, and he loved it.

"My name, guess my name. I like playing games with my prisoners. They're usually pretty feisty the first night," the wolf teased, dancing around Dax in a boxer's stance.

"O'Donnell," Dax muttered seriously. He knew his team's eyes were on him now. He didn't need to be knocked unconscious like his idiot brother.

"Ding ding ding! We have a winner!" O'Donnell yelped happily, punching Dax lightly in the gut. The fox cringed but immediately corrected himself, standing stock-still. "Got a first name for me? Come on. Guess. Every wrong answer gets you a punch."

Dax stared daggers up at his enemy. "Wolf."

O'Donnell threw a hard straight right to Dax's stomach. James dove behind the fox and held him up. "Stay awake, foxy," he jeered.

"Shut up, James," O'Donnell growled. "Guess again."

Dax simply looked up and glared.

"Five," O'Donnell announced.

Dax's eyes narrowed.

"Four."

The fox's upper lip twisted into a snarl.

"Three."

Dax spat on the wolf's boot.

"Zero," O'Donnell hissed, punching Dax square in the nose, shattering it. Blood flowed freely from the fox's snout and poured onto the floor.

"Answer!" the wolf shouted, punching Dax again in the stomach.

"I don't know!" Dax cried, biting back tears as the blood drained from his head. He felt dizzy and his whole face throbbed.

"That's wrong!" O'Donnell growled, bending back and throwing a series of quick kicks to Dax's chest. The fox cried out as he felt his ribs nearly splinter after every hit.

"I don't know!" Dax hiccupped. James let him go and he fell to his knees, coughing up blood. "I don't know." He collapsed onto the floor, gagging.

A few feet away, Gray's eyes fluttered open. "Unngggh," he moaned quietly. The team, James, and the wolf's were all focused on Dax as he struggled to get back up. Gray's head pounded and he felt as though his brain were about to explode. He looked up and saw, through blurry eyes, Darco stirring in the corner.

Darco raised a single finger to his beak. Gray understood after a long moment: be silent.

He nodded.

Darco had undone his bindings already; James had done a sloppy job tying him up, using a weak string. He had assumed that Darco would remain unconscious for quite some time--a fatal mistake. James had also failed to take the bird's blaster from him; the dog's amateurish mistakes shocked Darco, but he wasn't about to let his surprise slow him down. He slid his pistol to Gray, who was a good deal closer to the wolf and James. The fox struggled to grab the gun with his bound hands, but finally managed to get a hold of it and get into a ready position.

By now, the wolf had noticed that Gray and Darco were moving and froze as he saw the young fox raise the pistol. He found himself staring down the barrel of the gun.

"Now, I don't want to kill you," Gray said quietly and calmly.

The wolf simply stared at Gray.

James dove in front of O'Donnell, growling ferociously.

The massive wolf rolled his eyes and grabbed the dog in a chokehold.

"You worthless, incompetent fool! You didn't disarm the damn bird?! You're worthless! Shoot him, McCloud! Shoot him!" O'Donnell commanded, nearly snapping James's neck as he bent and twisted forward to get closer to the young fox.

Gray staggered back, dizzy and disoriented. He shook his head to clear it--and his vision--and trained the pistol on the wolf's head, who ducked behind James, bending like a tree about to snap.

"Kill him! Kill him or I will, then you!" the wolf hissed.

"Easy to say that while you've got a shield," Gray muttered. "First, tell me something."

The wolf poked his head out from behind James's, his neck straightening out.

"What?"

"What is your name?" Gray asked, genuinely curious. The gun swayed between James and his captor, who tightened the chokehold as the dog squirmed and grunted.

"Seriously?!" James gagged, struggling feebly against as the rock-solid muscle of O'Donnell's forearm crushed his throat.

"Bastion," the wolf growled, squeezing his fist and simultaneously pushing James's head forward. The combined flexing of his forearm and force forward almost immediately cut off the air to the dog's head; he fell unconscious within seconds. Bastion dropped the unconscious body to the floor and stood fully exposed to Gray's blaster.

"Go on, then. Shoot me."

Gray narrowed his eyes. He stood far enough away from Bastion that he didn't need to worry about the wolf trying to disarm him. Not quickly, anyway. He didn't fully understand what the wolf was playing at.

"Kill me!" Bastion howled, throwing his arms up. The team watched in horrified silence as Gray relaxed from his ready stance and let his bound hands fall. He stood straight up and stared up into the wolf's face, the gun pointed at the floor.

"No," Gray growled defiantly. "Because then I'm no better than you. And I'm better than Star Wolf will ever be."

"Gray," Dax sputtered, drooling blood. He spat and wrenched himself up on one knee. "What're you doing? Kill him!"

"Can't collect bounty on a dead prisoner," Gray replied simply. "Cornerian Army doesn't condone assassinations."

Bastion burst out laughing; a cruel, barking noise that scraped and dragged across the walls of the small chamber.

"You're going to arrest me? Oh, oh, irony. The beautiful, beautiful irony," he chuckled, folding his arms. "You're all tied up. And the only one with a gun is too scared to use it!"

"Oh, no one said I wasn't gonna use it," Gray said, pulling up the blaster and shooting Bastion in the feet.

The wolf howled in pain and fell, rolling and roaring on the hard stone floor.

"I'm just not gonna kill you with it," Gray finished, sitting on his haunches next to the roiling wolf. Bastion looked up at him with a furious, pain-ridden sneer.

"I'm going to cut you to pieces for this," he hissed, biting back a sob of pain as both of his feet bled profusely.

Gray smiled down at him. "Sure thing, big guy. First thing's first. Let's get you tied up."

---

The group's supplies had been stacked neatly in the corner of the room, behind where James had originally stood guard. Gray managed to fish through it and found a medical kit--but he could do nothing with it.

"Katrina," Gray called, remembering the cat's insistence on carrying knives.

"Yes, Mr. McCloud?" Katrina replied in a sweet voice, almost seductively. Gray turned and stared at her, a little awestruck.

He cleared his throat and frowned. "Uh...Right, yeah, the knives!" he remembered, staggering up from kneeling over the bags. He stumbled over to the cat but fell a few feet short. She giggled and wrapped her legs around his shoulders. Gray stared, mouth agape, up at the cat, who was now laughing loudly.

"The knives, Gray," she reminded him, twisting her left leg so he could more clearly see the sheath attached to her boot.

"R-right," he breathed, biting the handle and pulling the blade out carefully.

"Watch you don't cut anything," Katrina crooned softly.

"Can we try and be professional, here, you two?" Darco teased from the corner. "I mean, I could have gotten the knife."

Gray looked over at Darco. He'd completely forgotten that the bird wasn't tied up.

"This is embarrassing," Cody muttered, stifling a laugh as Marcus puckered his lips and pretended to kiss the air.

Gray turned, saw Marcus's face, blushed, and twisted around. Jerking his head back and then tossing it back the other way, he threw the knife toward Darco. The blade landed nearly three yards away; aiming with his mouth proved harder than the fox had thought.

"Hurry up, before Bastion and Dax bleed out," Gray growled, still blushing deeply.

"Or before these two get married," Marcus jabbed as Darco started cutting through his bindings. "You two can, ehm...untangle yourselves, now."

Gray rolled over and tried to wriggle his way out of Katrina's legs, but she crossed them together and half-choked him.

"Let me go!" he grunted, struggling. He had no use of his hands, though--try as he might, he was trapped.

"Now, you need to relax, Mr. Heroics," Katrina said. "So brave."

"I don't think this drug's completely worn off," Cody commented with a grin as Darco cut him loose and he tried to stand. The fox couldn't, however--his balance was far off. He tilted and crashed back to the floor.

"What was it, anyway? Bastion?" Gray asked, giving up in his escape attempt. Katrina simply lay back and, as Darco cut her free, put her arms behind her head.

"I'm not sure. James spiked your food. He told me some kind spider extract or something. It knocks your senses out of whack and eventually knocks you out. But he might have put something else in," the wolf answered, allowing Cody to tend to the bullet holes through his feet while Darco tied him up.

"Somebody's being awfully submissive. Didn't take much effort to get you to talk," Milani commented, gently rubbing Dax's nose. The fox leader had fallen unconscious.

"I don't plan on getting shot in the feet again," Bastion hissed angrily, glaring at Darco.

"I didn't do it!" Darco cried, throwing up his arms innocently. The pistol had been placed back in its holster on his right leg.

"The damn gun did," Bastion muttered. "Is the taller one out?"

"Dax? Unconscious?" Milani translated. "Yes. Thanks to you." She laid the venom thick in her voice.

Bastion shrugged, wincing as the disinfectant spray that Cody administered burned his wounds. "I do what I get paid to do."

"You weren't getting paid for this. James said something about ransom," Milani countered.

"Ransom?...Sort of. We were paid to kidnap two McClouds and a Lombardi," Bastion replied.

"But James said--" Gray started.

"I lied to the fool. You think I'd tell him anything? No. Never. Oi, watch it!" he cried as Cody bound a bandage tightly around his wounded foot.

"Just talk, big guy," Darco growled fiercely, hog-tying the unconscious James tightly.

"We were approached by an anonymous organization or person from an undisclosed planet to kidnap the leader of or force the disbandment of the team within the Third Division of the Cornerian Army containing two McClouds descendants and a Lombardi. I didn't plan on the Monroe being here. That's extra, probably," Bastion explained.

"Anonymous? Come on. You definitely know who it was," Gray pressed, shaking his head.

"Nope. Not a clue. We got an anonymous message written in code that we had to crack. We were also wired fifty thousand Cornerian dollars the next day. It took some time to make sure the message and money were legitimate. Then I had to come up with this plan, and set the whole thing up," Bastion explained.

"Fifty grand? Up front? Why don't I believe that?" Marcus muttered.

"I didn't, either," Bastion sympathized, allowing Darco to yank him to his feet. The bird quickly caught Bastion and staggered under his weight. The wolf couldn't walk--the pain stopped any attempt at that.

"Damn, you're heavy," Darco gasped, planting his feet and pushing upward. "Somebody wanna help me out here?"

"I would, but...Y'know," Gray muttered, again working--unsuccessfully--to untangle himself from Katrina's grasp. "Wait, did you untie her and leave me like this?!"

Darco broke out laughing and nearly let Bastion fall and hit the ground. Cody darted over to him, though, and helped essentially drag the wolf toward the door of the room.

"Well, I mean...she has other knives. She could have cut you free by now if she wanted," Darco pointed out.

Gray tilted his head back and, upside down, saw Katrina smile at him impishly. He shook his head and sighed. "Let me go?"

"The magic words, McCloud?" she teased, choking him with her calves.

Gray gagged. "P-please?"

"Good! Someone remembers their manners!" the cat patted him on the head and, with a deft roll, released him and stood up.

"What the hell was that about?" Gray whimpered, massaging his neck. "That's gonna bruise," he muttered to himself.

"Nothing," she said, patting him on the head again and walking away.

"You're not gonna untie me?!"

She turned and looked at him.

"Nah."

---

"Where are you leading us?" Darco asked for the umpteenth time. The group had filed out the single door from the dungeon chamber and was wandering seemingly in circles through the temple. The corridors, unlike the dungeon they'd been in, were lit by strange, blue-green bulbs built into the stonework of the walls. Darco had Bastion lead up front, with the bird's blaster trained on his back. The wolf was being dragged by Marcus and Cody. Milani and Gray carried Dax, and Katrina held the rear of the team, paranoid of attacks from behind.

"Out. That's where you wanted to go, isn't it?" Bastion growled.

"Somebody's on edge," Gray called, his voice strained. His head spun; it had been a confusing day. Had it only been a day? He couldn't be sure; the group had lay unconscious for who knew how long.

"Well, you would be, too, if you were getting captured," Bastion muttered after a moment.

"Nah, I think we kept our cool, actually," Gray countered, grinning to himself.

Bastion simply grunted something unintelligible. The group twisted and squeezed through endless corridor after endless corridor. The stone, the width and height of the passageways, the footsteps echoing off the walls, the fluorescent lanterns built into the walls--all was monotonous and never-ending. For what seemed like days, they wandered.

"Are you leading us out or are you trying to trap us in here?" Darco hissed, jabbing Bastion in the back with the blaster.

"We're almost there, birdy, calm down," Bastion replied dismissively.

Darco shook his head and punished the seemingly sarcastic answer with a sharp blow to the back of the head.

"Hey, take it easy, Lombardi!" Gray warned. "We're better than that, and you know it."

"We're here," Bastion said with a tired smile. All of his paws had gone numb; the circulation in his arms was cut off by the ropes, and his feet had lost feeling soon after he had been shot--but that was to be expected. Shock had set in. He was getting dizzier by the second; he could feel the blood seeping through the bandages around his feet.

Gray bounded ahead, eagerness overwhelming him. He reached what seemed like a dead end--oddly, the first they'd encountered. The stone of this obstruction was much darker than the stone of the rest of the temple, as if it had been exposed to the elements, or was a different sort of rock. It seemed older. He pushed on the cold stone of the wall, but it refused to budge.

"What the hell is this, Bastion?" Gray growled, grabbing the wolf by the collar. Bastion merely looked up at him and grinned, showing his fangs.

"Ironic. I had your neck in my hands not so long ago, didn't I?" the wolf muttered through his bared fangs.

Gray snarled at the wolf, and then turned to Darco. "Shoot the wall," he ordered sharply.

"Sh--what?" Darco stuttered, completely lost.

"Point your gun at the wall directly in front of us and shoot it," Gray repeated.

"But...shouldn't we, y'know, try and preserve the temple? I'm sure the Saurians won't like seeing their architecture get shot up," Cody pointed out.

"Do you want to die in here?" Gray asked, setting the ultimatum.

The group fell silent. After a long moment, Bastion started chuckling.

"How powerful do you think that gun is?" he taunted. "I had my team seal us in with one of the biggest stone blocks they could find. They're not going to come get us until I tell them to."

"Why wouldn't you just load us off and cart us away?" Milani asked, glaring at the treacherous white wolf.

"We had a specific date, time, and location to meet our client," Bastion elaborated. "The plan was to keep you here for a few days and soften you up, then hand you over and get paid."

"Why are you telling us this? You hid it from us before," Darco muttered, shaking his head. This all felt wrong--even more so than before.

Bastion shrugged as best he could with his arms still held by Cody and Marcus.

"I thought it was worth hiding. I realized it wasn't. My team's going to meet me either when I call them or in roughly two Saurian days. By that point, you'll be starved and exhausted and weak. You won't put up much of a fight, especially with the hardware they'll have with them. So I can sit here and wait. It seems I'm the one being rescued here," Bastion explained, smiling arrogantly. The pride was thick in his voice. He had everything under control.

Gray cradled his head in his hands. He cursed Dax for still being unconscious; his brother might actually know what to do.

"How old would you say this temple is? Anybody?" Gray asked, turning to the team. They had relaxed; Dax and James were lying down; Bastion was sitting with his tied hands between his legs; Marcus and Cody were leaning against the wall to Gray's right, Darco against the wall to his left; and Milani and Katrina were standing at the back of the group.

Milani reached out a paw and rubbed the nearest wall gently.

"Two thousand years? Maybe less, maybe more. No newer than one thousand, but no older than three. Cornerian years, that is," she speculated.

Gray nodded. He picked up a chunk of the ancient stone from the ground and weighed it in his hands. The lump he'd picked up wasn't particularly large, about the size of both of his fists put together, but surprisingly light. He turned and lobbed it at the massive boulder blocking their way. The piece he'd thrown shattered in a cloud of dust; the wall had a satisfactory mark in it.

Gray smiled. "Like I said. Darco. Shoot the hell out of that wall. I know you always pack a ton of ammo. Don't hold back, now."

Darco grinned back at his friend. He drew his pistol and trained it on the wall.

"That's never gonna work. The stone's too thick," Bastion reminded them, but he had an edge of nervousness in his voice.

"I don't think the gun cares how thick it is," Darco pointed out. Gray stepped back from the wall and motioned for Darco to start shooting.

The bird let loose. He was always an excellent shot, but not only for his accuracy. His trigger finger had drawn attention even back at the Academy; he had actually emptied the blaster before anyone could even see if it was doing damage.

Gray shook his head violently. "Horrible time not to have earplugs or something," he muttered. The noise of the gunshots had echoed off the walls and was still reverberating in their ears.

"God damn, that's loud," Dax rasped.

"Dax!" Gray cried, rushing over to his brother.

"Let him finish," Dax said, not even opening his eyes as his younger brother knelt over him. Milani joined the steel blue fox on the floor, but Darco opened fire again before anyone could get a word out.

Gray stared at the cloud of dust the blaster kicked up. It would be impossible to survey the precise amount of damage until Darco ran out of ammo, which was--as Gray had assumed it would be--quite some time. The bird had packed an immense number of clips for his blaster. The plasma rounds tore through the aged rock like it was butter. Bastion grew steadily more uneasy as Darco continued his cycle of shooting and reloading. The process dragged on for an eternity. The team watched in terrified anticipation as Darco finished off his last clip, then holstered the gun.

"Looks like it's your lucky day," Bastion hissed. The stone was, in reality, only about eight inches thick. Darco had wisely elected to shoot the same spot with all of his bullets. The result was a rough hole all the way through the rock. It was small, but it could be easily widened.

"Grab some rocks," Dax ordered with a scraping, dry voice. "Bust down that wall."

"Already taking over again?" Milani teased, beyond relieved that the team's leader was conscious.

Dax smiled weakly. "How'd the kid do?"

Milani looked up at Gray who was, along with the others, tearing at the hole with chunks of stone.

"Pretty well."

"Did anybody die?" Dax asked.

"What did we say about having faith in him?" Milani badgered, poking him in the chest.

Dax grabbed the vixen and hugged her.

"You scared me," she whispered.

"I'm sorry," he whispered back. "I'll do my best not to get beaten senseless next time.

She smiled and kissed him on the forehead. She then stood and joined the others in tearing at the wall.

Dax looked up at Bastion, who was hitting his head softly off the wall.

"That's not good for you," Dax pointed out.

"Shut the hell up," Bastion growled, beaten.