Grown to Love

Chapter Twenty-Seven

One of the Cornerian soldiers ran down the hall, breathing heavily and sweating intensely. Many of the soldiers and lab employees watched as he ran down the halls, not getting a chance to ask him if he was alright as they got a quick glance at his torn uniform. He barged into General Pepper's main office, collapsing to the floor after pushing the doors open. Two guards in the room walked over to him and helped him up. He breathed short, heavy, raspy breaths; barely conscious. Pepper stood and walked over to him. "What happened?" He sounded concerned as he leaned forward and saw the damage of his uniform. "The unit you sent out to scout Venom...we were attacked. Too many enemies for us to fight off. Fled the scene and on my way back, there was a call put through my Arwing. I-It was Andrew Oikonny. He said that he had a message for you. Let the rest of Star Wolf free or face Andross' army." Pepper frowned and turned away from the wounded soldier. "Have him sent to the nurse. Have her patch him up. Gentlemen, we may be entering a war." He said with a chilling voice. The guards escorted the soldier out of the room and when the doors shut, Pepper sighed heavily. We can't rely on Star Fox. We're the Cornerian Army. We can do this. At least...I hope.
    Fox's ear twitched and his eyes slowly fluttered open. The light of the sun was beaming through the window, brining in a slight warmth to the room. He sat up and silently stretched. He got to his feet and made his way out of the room and to the stair case. At the bottom of the first platform lay Wolf. He'd fallen asleep like an actual canine and he had his tail wrapped around himself, covering his face. Fox smiled to himself and made his way to the end of the stairs, sitting on the last two and looked over at the rest of the men already awake and moving things around. "Up and about I see?" Fox asked. Peppy stretches slightly and smiled up at Fox. "Hardly. We've all just woken up." He said. "I was gonna go check if you were awake but uh...there was an obstacle in the way." Falco said as he looked over at Wolf. Fox shrugged and looked back down at Wolf. He leaned forward and placed his hand on his head, and began to softly pet Wolf. His ear twitched and Wolf began to slowly wake. His head lifted and his eye slowly fluttered open. His vision adjusted as he looked up and found Fox smiling down at him. His face grew warm and he quickly sat up. "Morning." Fox said. Wolf cleared his throat and replied with a rough voice. "Morning. How long were you sitting there?" "Not long. Just came down the stairs." Wolf then got to his feet and stretched, his back loudly popping. Falco gagged sarcastically. "Doesn't that hurt you?" He asked. "It didn't even sound like a proper pop. It sounded like you just BROKE your back." Wolf sneered slightly at him. "You try sleeping on a small platform of the stairwell." He then made his way to the main floor and Fox followed close. "Alright boys," he started. "Last night, Fox and I discussed our main issue here. We were able to talk about some possible solutions we could do but we've not come to a decision yet. What we're gonna do is talk to you about them and—" "Hang on Wolf," Fox started. "I gave it some thought. Maybe your way is the best shot we've got." Wolf raised a brown and gave a slight smirk. "And what exactly is "his way"?" Falco asked. "Simply put; force." Wolf said with a smile as he punched his fist into the palm of his hand. Slippy swallowed audibly. "You mean we're going to hurt the General?" "If it's necessary." Fox quickly replied. He walked over to his team and placed his hands on Falco and Peppy's shoulders. "At this point, we're running out of options. We're Star Fox. General Pepper can't deny that. We're only criminals to the Cornerian Army because he said we are. We have to make him see that he's wrong in thinking that and that he's wrong in trying to hurt them." He then points to Star Wolf. The three men looked over at Fox with confused glares. "What're you getting at here McCloud?" Leon sneered. "Just because you guys work for Andross doesn't mean you can't change. Heck, if we can resolve this whole issue for my team, maybe Pepper can help you guys get out of this situation, working with Andross I mean. You could probably live normal lives here in Corneria even." "Bah," Leon scoffed. "What makes you think we'd even want that?" Fox frowned and glared at him. "Well I'm sorry if I'm trying to help. I just thought maybe you were tired of living a sad life on that rotten planet, Venom." "A sad life? I'm living just how I want. We're not the ones who've been cast away from our own planet by your so called general." Falco jumped in and stepped towards Leon. "That's enough out of you. Learn to shut your trap will ya?" Leon pulled his knives out and quickly dashed towards Falco, placing the tips of the knives against his feathers. Without hesitation, Falco took hold of the collar of Leon's vest and held him close, pulling his gun out and holding the barrel under Leon's chin. "Come on big guy," Falco raised his voice. "Go on ahead and just try to stab me. I'll blow your brains out." Fox bit down on his tongue and began to sweat nervously. "Falco," he spoke shakily. "Put your gun down. We're all working together here." "Yeah, I thought that's what we were doing until this asshole pulled his weapon out on me. I'm simply retaliating." The tension between the two grew and Fox barked, "Wolf! Tell him to put his weapons down!" "You heard him Leon," Wolf said calmly. "Put 'em down." Leon glared deep into Falco's eyes, breathed slowly, and lowered his knives. With that, Falco then released Leon and put his gun back into his holster. "It'll be a miracle if we can even get to the General with these two at each other's throats." Pigma joked. "For once I can agree with Pigma." Peppy said with a heavy sigh that was followed by a small chuckle. "Look," Wolf finally said in a more serious tone. "What we're going to do is make our way back into Corneria City. We have to get back to the Cornerian Army Base and get into Pepper's main office without being seen. Our best bet is to sneak over there during nightfall. The dark will help us in without being detected. Once we get in, we have to make sure he's alone. If we bust into his office and he's got guards with him, we'll have to take them out. As soon as that's done, Fox and I will do the talking. A kind of "good cop" "bad cop" type deal. We'll make sure he gets what we're trying to say and if he agrees to our terms, we can make our way out with him near us. He has to make it known to all the soldiers that we're no threat after this." Falco huffed heavily. "I hate that this actually sounds like it could work. So how do we get into the building without being spotted?" "The watchtowers have blindspots." Leon quickly added. "I could go up there and take out the guards. Once they're out, I could take out the lights. Now the guards on the ground are going to get suspicious so some of you could take them out in the pitch black. We'd go undetected." "The cameras have night vision." Fox said under his breath. "Well, I could try hacking into the system if I get to the power box. I just have to try getting to it undetected." Said Slippy. "That power box is inside the building." Replies Peppy. "You'd have to get inside in order to do that." "And no one knows the building better then you, Peppy." Falco said. "Not exactly." Peppy said, only this time he sounded angry. He looked over at Pigma. "I can't get Slip in there alone. Maybe Pigma could take him in." Wolf clasped his hands loudly, making everyone jump slightly. "Alright. I have this planned out now." He grinned. "We can't go in with just our guns though. We'll need more weapons." "So what do you suppose we do?" Questioned Fox. "We go to the city." Wolf said as he walked over to the door. He opened it, the sun shining in and the sound of birds filling the silent building. "Let's go."
The afternoon came quickly. The sun shined without a cloud in the sky and lit up the streets of Corneria with people. From afar on the top of a hill, the men looked down at the city and listened to the audible city noises. "We can't go in there like this." Falco stated. "Pepper is bound to have informed that we're criminals." Slippy places a finger in his chin and thought silently. He then snapped his fingers. "We could ditch our uniforms and look like any other person." "Good thinking Slip." Peppy said excitingly. "Issue is," Falco quickly added. "We don't have other clothing. What do we do about that?" "We improvise." Fox said confidently. He then started to remove his vest and gloves. He then kicked his boots off and set his clothing to the side. "We can go to my house. I'm bound to have lots of random clothing we could all use." "We all do." Slippy added to Fox's statement. "Then let's go. We shouldn't be too far." He took a few steps and stopped, looking behind him. "Drop whatever you can of your uniforms. The less we have to carry the better." With that, the rest of them took off their vests, gloves, boots, and badges. Down to their pants and shirts, the group followed Fox to his house. They walked along the edge of the city for quite some time until finally reaching the backyard of Fox's house. "Alright," Fox said quietly. "Now I know we live on the outskirts of the city but that doesn't mean Pepper isn't keeping an eye out. We'll have to climb over the fence. Wolf, come here." Wolf made his way next to Fox and Fox took his hands. He had Wolf place then into a cup shape and held them below his waist. "Bend down and help me up." Wolf did so and Fox places one foot into Wolf's hands and held onto his shoulders. Wolf boosted him to the top of the fence and with ease, Fox pulled himself over the fence. Fox called out from the other side of the fence. "Ok, Wolf help them up and I'll help pull them over." One by one, Wolf and Fox helped everyone else up over the fence. Once all were in the backyard, Fox walked over to the sliding door and pulled on it. Locked. He sighed and looked over at the window to the left and smiled. He walked over to it and pulled it up. It easily slid open and he quickly climbed through. He made his way around and to the sliding door and unlocked it. "Alright, get in." He said with a smile. Everyone walked in and all of Star Fox exhaled slowly. "Just walking in feels like I've finally retired." Peppy said. "It does feel good to be home." Falco replied. "Let's not get comfortable yet boys," Fox said quickly. "I say we get some food and get dressed. We don't want to waste time. I'll go see what I've got in my closet. Falco, Peppy, you guys should do that too. Our clothes have a better chance of fitting these guys. Slippy, why don't you start up on some lunch." Slippy gave a thumbs up and smiled cheerfully. "Will do Fox." The rest of the team followed each member into a room: Wolf followed Fox, Leon followed Falco, and Pigma followed Peppy. They each pulled out piles of clothing for both sides of the team's to chose from. Eventually, after much bickering on what would fit who, both Star Fox and Star Wolf entered the kitchen to eat. Slippy turned around and smiled in surprise. "Wow. You guys almost do look like different people." He observed each person. Fox wore a short sleeved navy blue dress shirt and black jeans, accompanied by red shoes with white rims. Sitting atop his eyes were dark sunglasses and his hair was combed up and to a side. Wolf was in one of Fox's black short sleeved shirts. The size difference made it slightly tight on him and had his muscles stretch the shirt. He wore a pair of lightly torn blue jeans that were a little short, exposing his shins ever so slightly, and a pair of white Adidog branded shoes. A gold colored chain rested around his neck and, just like Fox, had sunglasses atop his eyes. Rather then having his hair combed into his regular mow-hawk, Wolf had combed it forward with a slight tilt up, having it fall back softly. Falco had a dark teal colored baseball hat and wore a light, dirty colored pink, long sleeved shirt with a dark blue sweater around him. He had a pair of jeans that mixed of the colors blue and gray and he wore white shoes. In what looked like a short length leather colored drench coat, with a light gray shirt and dark blue jeans followed with black shoes, Peppy looked like an older man who owned a fashion business. Leon wore a simple black hoodie and dark blue colored jeans. He had a gray baseball hat and had the black hood of his hoodie over it. To keep himself from being too recognizable, he hid his tail in the back of the hoodie and changed his color to a dark blue. Pigma had worn a basic white t-shirt and managed to find a jean jacket Peppy owned that fit him. He wore a pair of jeans that were accompanied with leather cowboy boots. He even wore sunglasses and a baseball cap. They had all sat down at the table and were served by Slippy. With their mouths watering, the group of men immediately began to dig in. While they ate, Slippy went into his room and got changed into black pants and a white shirt, wearing a red hoodie around him and put on a red bucket hat. When he exited his room, everyone else was standing in the living room talking amongst themselves. Wolf looked over and saw Slippy walk over. He stood straighter and cleared his throat. "Alright guys. Earlier we all came up with how we could get to General Pepper. I've come up with a complete plan and we're going to discuss it here and now. The sooner we get this settled the better. So here's the plan. Fox and I will keep two guns, the two hand guns I gave these two," He gave glances at Pigma and Leon. "We don't want to carry anything that could expose us. So here's what we'll do instead of carry guns. Most of us know hand to hand combat. In case we need to get more down though, we'll make our own weapons. If we can get to a hardware store we can all make our own weapons. We're all capable of engineering one thing or another. Once we have our homemade weapons, we'll make our way to the Cornerian Army Base. Once nightfall arrives that's when we move. Peppy brought up that the power box is inside. We need to get Slippy in there so he can disarm the cameras. Here's were we're lucky. Pigma knows of a power crew that shows up every other night to check on that power box. Tonight is one of those nights. They arrive every time at exactly nine thirty. So long as we get there before them, we'll be in perfect position. Peppy and Pigma will take out the crew members and take their uniforms, taking on their look. They should have a large crate that they take when making repairs. Slippy can climb in the crate and get wheeled into the building by these two. Peppy knows the way and Pigma will go with him as backup in case anything goes wrong. Once Slippy takes out the cameras, he should be able to operate the lights from outside. In order to not make a scene, Slippy will have to find the right switch that powers the outer light posts. He needs to make one flicker for a few seconds. That'll be our signal to move on to phase two. Leon will climb up to the watch towers and take out the guards. Falco, Fox and I will take out the guards on the ground once they hear the commotion from the watchtowers. When every guard is out, Leon can take out the lights to prevent anyone near by to see that the guards are all knocked out. Here's where it gets tricky. Fox and I will have to make our way to Pepper's office which is stationed at the center of the building. It'd be too risky to try and sneak all the way over there so we're going to have to club through the vents. Leon and Falco will have to find Peppy and Pigma. When you two do, you'll have to get with Slippy and stay within the crate. Pigma dm Peppy should be able to wheel you guys to the main office. You'll all then take out the man guards at that door and take their guns. When you hear us two come down from the vents, you enter the room and keep those guns up. From there, Fox and I will talk with Pepper. You'll al just keep an eye on our backs." Everyone mumbled silently and gave small nods. "And what if something goes wrong?" Falco then asked. "I figured you'd say that." Wolf smirked. "If anything goes wrong, we threaten the General. If something goes wrong before we reach the General, then show no mercy." The smirk left Wolf's face and his voice grew slightly sinister. At that, Peppy and Slippy gave audible gulps. Fox sighed and took a step forward. "We've only got a few short hours to make our weapons and get into position to put this plan into action. Let's not waste any more time. Let's rock and roll."