Chapter XIX
Hello friends! This is very late, but the reason for that was that I needed to plan out the next few chapters. They are going to be the most critical, setting the stage for the rest of the story.
On an amazing side note, my super awesome friend Felldewan had commissioned a picture featuring Krystal and Alex. He is truly a great guy, if you like my stories, you'll love his, so drop on bye and check them out!
The picture is from SinisterRabbit, he is the supremely talented artist who drew it, so if you like it check him out as well.
Now, with that taken care of, please enjoy this next installment of shattered. And as always, comment if you feel up to it.
Shattered
Chapter XIX
"He-he's still alive!" Fox shouted excitedly, pumping his paw in the air. The whole team was in a joyous uproar. Their human was not dead. It was a wonderful feeling. But it was slightly dampened by the fact that he was no doubt a prisoner of the insane scientist, and that he had sustained tremendous wounds.
"But his arm." Krystal muttered in horror. She had frozen in a shock when she saw her beloved holding onto his stump of an arm, she could still see, in her mind's eye, blood spurting onto the cold unforgiving metal flooring of that accursed facility. She was ecstatic beyond belief that he still lived, but....oh god his arm! She looked to Fay who held a paw out. Krystal gratefully took it, the collie squeezed comfortingly.
"We can't worry about that right now! We have to rescue him!" Falco exclaimed jumping up from his seat. He was holstering his gun and running out of the room. The avian absolutely refused to wait one more second, Alex was one of the very few friends he had made in his life. And he would be damned if he let him remain imprisoned.
"WAIT!" Peppy shouted, stalling the avian mid-run. "We need to have level heads about this, he is most likely in the hands of that ape Liedman. We have to formulate a plan." Peppy spoke with wisdom, stilling rapid hearts and restoring their grasp on the predicament.
Miyu surprisingly, was the next to speak. "Pep is right, if we want to save our friend we need to be smart about it."
Fox and Fara nodded in sync soon followed by everyone else. Krystal and Fay's were a little subdued though, their hearts and minds still focused on Alex's injuries.
"What ever we do it has to be done soon, I will not have him as that ape's prisoner for a second longer then necessary!" Fox growled, tail lashing back and forth like a whip. The vulpine fumed at the thought of his best friend in captivity. No doubt the despicably vile simian was doing horrendous things to Alex.
"I feel the same Fox." Peppy placated the furious vulpine. "I want to help him just as much as you, but as I said moments before, we must handle this with speed and intelligence."
"We need to get help!" Krystal suddenly blurted out. "I know Pepper will help is if he is explained the situation!" Her tone of voice was desperate and panicked. She wanted to bring her lover home.
"Don't worry, I'm sure he will." Fara consoled, patting the other vixen on her blue furred arm. She turned to Fox with a determined expression. "We need to leave immediately."
"Let's go then!" Falco exclaimed from the doorway, he had stood inside it as he watched them deliberate. He found it all pointless, they knew their friend was alive, so why weren't they already leaving?
Slippy was the first one to reach Falco, his speed startled everyone. The toad was just as anxious to retrieve their captured companion as the others.
With great haste they all left the great Fox and rushed to Pepper. Once the old hound had heard the news he vowed to assemble a strike-force to head to the location of the human. First though, he would have to get Okionny to cough up the whereabouts of the base.
It would take allot of political maneuvering, but he would succeeded, he owed that much to the human. So the reasonably impatient team had to sit it out, their wait was not pleasant. All they could think about was the suffering Alex would no doubt be experiencing at the hands of the accursed ape.
Alex was jolted awake by a surge of electricity coursing through his body. It was not a new feeling, the chains holding him up had a ground wire twisted into the links, a crude but effective means of delivering pain. He could feel his muscles spasming and he shuddered under the powerful voltage.
A few minutes later the feeling ceased. "Wakey wakey!" The infuriatingly happy voice of Dr, Liedman exclaimed. The bastard was always smiling. Alex would do anything to wipe that sickly smug grin off his face. The sheer arrogance of his jailer and torturer gnawed on his sanity. Luckily, or unluckily, Alex was not completely lucid or sane. The only other thing that he could feel and recognize beside impotent anger was pain.
But that didn't bother Alex, not anymore. He embraced it, it was the only way to not fully lose his mind. All Alex had to do was let the primal side of himself assume control. It allowed the suffering man to retreat into the sanctuary of his inner mind, where he could relive his memories of his friends and find some measure of peace. Yet the electrical assault dragged his consciousness halfway out of hiding. Now he would have to deal with the consequences.
Alex forced his eyes open to the frail image of the sadistic doctor. His golden eyes blazed their hatred at the simian who just looked back with a condescending smirk. He growled at the ape, struggling against his chains. The response was Liedman's mocking laughter. Now enraged Alex roared and began to exert his full strength on the restricting bindings. "Oh please, you can't break those." The ape dismissed chuckling evilly waving off Alex's efforts uncaringly.
Liedman continued his mocking laughter until he heard the groan of the chains. It seemed that Alex could indeed break the chains. Panicking Liedman fell backwards on his ass as Alex snapped the metal restraints. The simian squealed pathetically and scampered to the door. The feral human chased him down but was narrowly averted by the door slamming shut. Furious at the the fact the damned doctor escaped retribution he pounded futilely on the thick metal doors, one arm ending at the elbow. (The wound had been painfully and shoddily healed, just enough to ensure that he would not pass away from it.) He had been denied his vengeance.
Some small part of Alex was satisfied marginally by the terrified shout the simian uttered and his undignified collapse onto the floor. It would make what was about to come worthwhile. He was laughing as the doors opened and he was pushed backwards by a heavy plastic slug to the chest. A squad of riot-geared guards charged in and pinned him to the floor. They ruthlessly beat him with the butt of their rifles and their armored boots, the entire time he continued to laugh. The human was content with his decision. He could feel his ribs give out and his right shoulder blade dislocate at an indiscernible time during the beating, and coughed up dark crimson frothy blood, it dribbled out of his lips and onto the frigid metal grating of the floor. One of his lungs had been punctured. He let out a wet sigh of relief, the air flowed through the holes in his lung. Maybe he would die this time?
Sadly, the abuse stopped and the guards filled out before the deed could be done. A few minutes Liedman reentered, with a single guard in tow and kneeled down to the fetal form of his prisoner. He leaned down to whisper, almost gently, in Alex's ear. The voice that poisoned his ear held a dark and foreboding placidity. "Maybe next time you'll FUCKING...SHOW...ME...RESPECT!" The ape punctuated each shouted syllable with a fist to the face. Alex felt his left cheekbone give way under the brutal punches. His vision flashed and wavered with white and black spots and he faded in and out of awareness. Eventually he completely blacked out. His last thought was that this day had been better then the one before.
He only hoped that his abuse would soon come to an end, he knew his sanity would not hold for another day. For when darkness claimed him, the voices of the dead filled his head. His pendant was gone, he no longer had the means of repelling the dormant madness that slumbered, deeply imbedded in his mind.
It took three days for Pepper to pry the information they needed to enact their rescue plan. It seemed that Oikonny was thankful for their assistance in removing the good doctor, but thought that he didn't need to continue to cooperate. He no longer cared about Liedman, he was just happy to know that he was no longer on Venom.
That philosophy didn't fly with Pepper, after much coercion the aged hound got the information they needed. As soon as they got it from Pepper, Starfox bolted to their ship and took off, leaving the rest of the recovery team in the dust. They had their destination, and they wouldn't wait on anyone.
The information led to another secret base, this one was on the inhospitable world of Fichina. With troubled hearts and anxious minds they traveled to the harsh environmental planet. As The Great Fox neared the ice-ball of a planet, Krystal and Fay stood in the observatory, wearing their suits, ready to make planetfall. "You think he's down there?" Krystal asked Fay as they took in the sights below.
"I know he is, and we will get him back." Fay replied with a certainty that helped to calm the vixen down. Her emotions had been every-which-way since the discovery that her love still lived.
"I wish I had your confidence." Krystal sighed, her posture becoming slouched. Her once lively and fluffy cerulean tail lay meekly on the decking. Fay wrapped Krystal up in a hug, sharing her strength with the vixen.
The door to the observatory opened and Falco ran in, breathlessly. "Let's go! The Arwings are ready for launch, and Pepper's reinforcement will be arriving soon!" The avian said hurriedly, bouncing in place. He was a bird of action, and he needed to get going.
"Kay bird boy." Fay said as the avian ran out of the door. She then herded Krystal out and down to the hanger.
Inside they saw the entire team waiting. Even Peppy had decided to come, brushing aside the others concern. He would not sit idly by as the others went to save Alex. That boy had become something of a son to the old hare. And he would die before he let a son of his remain a prisoner to any one, insane ape scientist or not.
Lupa and Penelope were there to see them off. The little wolf cub had not really understood the video, but she had grasped the fact that Alex was still alive.
"Is big brother coming back?" She looked up to Krystal as the vixen walked to her ship.
"Of course he is, even if I have to drag him back here myself." Krystal replied with a smile, which Penelope returned, innocent and bright.
"Let's move people!" Falco ordered loudly and impatiently from his cockpit, he was ready and raring to go. Krystal bid goodbye to the duo remaining behind and climbed I to her Arwing.
As the determined team headed down to the planet all Krystal could do was pray that Alex was right, and that she was going to make that pus filled sack that looked like an ape eat his own guts.
His mind was gone, nothing but fragmented dreams and memories. Who was this Alex fellow? Whoever he was he had a good life. The observer in his mind agreed. Then he began to bicker with his own shattered self. He didn't even know who he was. Was HE this Alex?
Only thing he knew for certain was that at the edge of his thoughts lingered a dark and malevolent entity. It tried to trick him with its velvety soft whispers but even his decimated consciousness would not be deceived. It was no friend of his! The thing would never get what it wanted from him!....what did it want? Maybe he should listen and fi-no! That's what it wanted him to do!
The internal war was halted when a voice, from the outside, rang in his head like the damning tone of a funeral bell. "I think that the last beating broke him." It sounded more frustrated then annoyed. "I suppose we could just kill him, I don't think we could get anything useful from him anymore. No...wait, I have a better idea, leave him here, let him die...alone...in the darkness." The unknown voice chuckled maliciously and faded, followed by the sound of a door slamming.
Once more he was shrouded in the darkness and insanity of his own mind. He, ever so slowly, descended into the realm of madness. What the good doctor and his dying patient did not know, was that his rescue was at hand.
But...were they too late?
The team touched down outside the facility, a few kilometers away. Their arrival had been shrouded by the arctic storms and blizzards. As they clambered out of their Arwings, they instinctively huddled together for warmth. The weather was beyond freezing, it was the kind of cold that you almost didn't feel. It just sucked the heat out off you silently and without warning.
Krystal and the girls stayed close together as the guys went to forage ahead. Now was not the time to worry about the cold, they had a much more important focus. The rescue of their friend and family member.
Soon they arrived at the outskirts of the hidden base. "W-w-what d-d-do we do n-n-now?" Slippy asked with his teeth chattering.
"We wait for the signal, and then we go in and save Alex." Fox answered simply to the amphibian. His paws were firmly tucked into his jacket pockets and his tail had been secured in a little sleeve.
"What a plan!" Falco exclaimed with fake enthusiasm. "It's almost as if you had just made it up!"
Before he could continue Krystal slugged his arm and growled. "Now is not the time for games." She was agitated, her heart burned with a deadly fire, when the signal was given she would unleash her rage upon the pathetic beings who would dare take her man from her. The vixen would not stop until he was found and the ape lay dead at her hindpaws.
Falco was about to fire off a retort when he saw the vixen's blazing emerald orbs. He changed tactics and backed away slowly, feathered hands held defensively in front of him. "Right...got that...no jokes." He moved to hide behind Fox, who was not thrilled with the avian's antics.
"Now, crappy jokes aside. We should get ready, the signal will be given as soon as the fleet arrives." Fox led the others to a small hill outside the facility. When the time came they would charge the gates. Hopefully the landmasters would provide a high enough degree of firepower that they would get there intact.
Krystal lingered in the back of the group, she clutched her staff grimly, Fay watched her worriedly. "You okay?"
Krystal looked up, her fiery eyes dimmed slightly, and she sniffled. She held an aura of anger and strength, but inside she was frightened and trembling. She just wanted her life back to the way it was before, when her days had been filled with a loving man and good friends. "I just want him back."
"I know, I do to." Fay said, bringing Krystal up into a hug. "We all do." Both of them were surprised when they felt another two bodies join the hug.
"Don't worry Krystal, we'll get Alex back!" Miyu said confidently. She had her trademark smirk, one canine peaking out from her fuzzy lips.
"Yes...we...will get him back." Fara said awkwardly as she joined the hug, patting Krystal on the back.
Still, Krystal appreciated her efforts all the same. "T-t-thank you guys." She sniffled, the multiple warm furred bodies warming her's and her heart.
Fox and the other guys looked on, feeling a growing sense of determination. They will save him, and they will bring brutal justice to his captors.
Moments later, a searing beam of iridescent red energy blasted away a large portion of the compounds wall. "That's the signal!" Fox shouted, brandishing his blaster and running down the hill. Soon he was followed by the rest of the team. As they approached the gates, a trio of landmasters were deployed via transport ships, and began to lay waste to the outer compound.
It seemed that the mission had begun, but would they find what they were looking for down in the depths?