The Devil Woman of Philat

Chapter 6: Underground

"Pedal to the metal, blow by blow, You're running with the Devil, it's Touch and Go."

Emerson, Lake, and Powell-Touch and Go

Her biocomputer buzzed, indicating movement from two directions, or was it three? Any which way, the assailants burst into the house, Bossk and Moglin through the back door and Al through the northernmost garage door. Her hands went to her blasters, intending to go down fighting.

"Don't try it, Aurra."

The Palliduvan stopped and looked over her shoulder. There in the hallway, looking disheveled, but very much alive, was Ed. The brown-haired human had Aurra on the business end of the platinum-plated Desert Eagle known as the Reaper's Scythe.

Even so, she casually reached behind her and grabbed her beer off the kitchen island. Taking a sip, Aurra remarked "There's a million reasons why you should pull that trigger. But that's not what's going to happen."

"That a fact?" Ed retorted, voice laced with venom.

Aurra shook her head.

"No matter what's transpired in the last several hours. No matter what colourful names you're calling me in your head, you still care about me. I think you always will."

Ed pulled the trigger.

Aurra shot up in bed, panting heavily. After her breaths slowed, the Palliduvan bounty hunter grabbed her wristcom off the nightstand and checked the chrono. Seeing that it was early morning, she decided to get up and start the day.

But as she went through her morning routine of showering and grabbing a bite to eat, Aurra could not stop thinking about that night. Ed hadn't shot her, though for the briefest moment, she'd been secretly afraid that he would. Afraid that she had trained him all too well.

However, what he had said next had hurt more than any 44 Magnum round.

"Here's what will happen, you're gonna end up in a situation just like the one on Skanlon. In over your head so much, that you don't know which way is up. Only this time, your luck will have run out, and you'll die. Alone. Now grab your stuff, and get the hell out of my house."

Aurra let out a huff and headed for the basement, intent on turning her mind elsewhere. Entering the Nashtah, she ordered "Alf, get me the files on Faxton."

"As you wish, mistress."

Sitting at the ship's holotable, Aurra read through the biography that Alf had retrieved from the net. It seemed that Faxton had lost a lot in his life. There had been a fire in his teen years that had killed his mother. His father had been presumed dead in that same fire, though Aurra knew from her prior research that he had been killed on Vogar two months ago.

Faxton also had an older brother who been part of the Black Suns and who had been killed in the final hours of that conflict. But what really took Aurra's interest was the fact that the vulpine had a lover and an unborn child who had been killed on the orders of the Black Suns' leader. On top of all that, he was also godfather to Marcus McCloud, Star Fox's current leader.

At the end of the bio were two files. One was titled Cyrus Evergreen and contained images and small bits of info. Aurra was quite surprised to see that Evergreen had worked for an organization headed by Lloyd.

"Looks like his old profession didn't agree with him." Aurra mused.

She scrolled through the images, the first showing a black-furred vulpine in a similarly coloured mask. The second, taken a couple years later, showed the same fox, but with a black and white mask not unlike those of the insurgents she had encountered on Lumia.