Star Fox: Warring Guilds (Starting Over)

[Star_Dragon]

Okay... for those who never saw this story, I am Starting over. So, here is the Intro and Chapter One...

Star Fox:

Warring Guilds

Introduction

It has been two years since the destruction of the Anglar, and Venom’s sudden Terraforming to an inhabitable planet. Star Fox, by some incredible, yet incomprehensible miracle, has been transformed into its own guild, with members spanning throughout the galaxy. Fox McCloud, Krystal, Katt Monroe, Falco Lombardi, Slippy Toad, Amanda Toad, and Lucy Hare are just a few of the leading members. Over the years, great Trans-Dimensional Intergalactic Rifts have brought numerous races to the Lylat system.

Among these races are the Covenant Collective, the United Federation of Planets, The Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, the Dragonarian Empire, the Reman Federation, and the Kemorainian Star Empire. A few of these races, such as the Dominion alliance and the Kemorainian imperial remnant, are less friendly, and wage war on the Lylat system. With the help of the Dragonarian and Kemorainians’ technology, the conflicts were ended, with only minor skirmishes breaking out every now and then.

This story starts when Fox and his friends receive a new member to the guild. But this new member is hiding a secret... one so deadly, it alone could mean the salvation of the new Star Fox guild... or its destruction. Soon, there will be a new enemy to the guild, an old rival may yet rise up to face them, armed now with the tools of the enemies of the galaxy...

Chapter One

Fox wasn’t here, wasn’t there, wasn’t anywhere insofar as he could tell from within the strange never-never land he floated in. He could barely hear Falco calling his name, and he could occasionally make out images of various members of the Star Fox guild. But one such person wasn’t a member that Fox recognized. He was a Cornerian Cat like Katt Monroe, but with Crimson fur and lifeless brown eyes. His hands held a sort of rifle, and clipped to the sides of his belt was a pair of plasma katanas, probably gotten from the Terran Military. Fox didn’t recognize this particular person, and as soon as he saw him, he heard a voice chanting in an alien language.

Suddenly, without warning, Fox awoke.

“Fox, are you awake?” Falco said over the intercom. Fox groaned, reached over and answered the call.

“Yeah, I’m awake. What’s going on?”

“We have a new member to the guild. Peppy sent us his file.” Falco answered.

“Acknowledged, I’m on my way.” Fox replied. He killed the comm connection, slumped into his clothes, and headed to the main promenade level of the space station he was on, commonly called “Star Fox HQ.” It was the main headquarters of the guild, the largest one in the galaxy, rivaling the Star Wolf guild’s HQ in the former Mirdakian home planet of Mirdak. Star Wolf had done much to revitalize Mirdakian space after it had been annihilated by the Kemorainians so many years ago.

Star Fox HQ was a massive, multi-level orbital space station shaped like two dinner plates on a stick, with multiple platforms and defense complexes jutting outwards from the stick. It served as a  home sweet home for many of Star Fox’s members, which included many species, mainly Terrans, Anthropomorphic Foxes, Canines, Cats, Rodents, Birds and Hares, as well as a select number of Sangheili, a few Klingon, Romulan and Reman ships, and some Dragonarian ships. The station itself sat in orbit of the planet Venom, as Star Fox’s token of good will to Dash Bowman, the leader of the Venomian Empire in exchange for occasional military assistance.

Fox stopped in the mess hall to pick up a cup of coffee, and promptly ran into his lover, Krystal. She seemed genuinely worried over Fox’s appearance, and this showed in her voice.

“Fox, are you alright?” she asked as she grabbed a cup of hot tea. Fox paused a minute as he took a drink of his coffee. He had long ago learned not to lie to Krystal, as she was a telepath, and would be able to pick it out easily, so telling her “I’m fine” wouldn’t do any good.

“Before Falco woke me up, I... had a vision of sorts.” Fox finally said. Krystal placed her hand on his. Her grip was tight, yet gentle, a testimony to the feelings she had developed for Fox over the years.

“What about?” she asked. Fox smiled, then replied,

“I saw... various members of Star Fox. I’m not sure why. I think I might have seen you, shortly before I saw...” Fox paused, unsure of what to say. He knew that the crimson-furred Cornerian cat he saw wasn’t part of Star Fox. But who was he with? What was so special about him that could have induced a slideshow vision of several Star Fox members?

“Before you saw what?” Krystal inquired. Fox sighed, somewhat fearful.

“Before I saw someone I haven’t seen before. Someone not part of Star Fox.” Krystal sipped her tea, then set it down on the table.

“What did they look like?” Before Fox could answer, Falco’s voice came over his communicator.

“Fox, better get up here to the Command Center.” Fox downed the last of his coffee, and grabbed his communicator.

“Acknowledged.” He was about to go when Krystal gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and said,

“We’ll talk about this later.” Fox smiled, returned the kiss, and left.

It took five minutes to get to the command center, and when Fox arrived, Falco approached him.

“Fox, I really think you should see this,” Falco said.

“What, the file on the new member?” Fox asked.

“No,” Falco replied. “The file on his ship.” Before Fox could ask why, Falco led Fox over to a panel displaying a tactical readout. From the readout, Fox saw that the ship was a heavily-modified Class-II Dragonarian Warbird, armed with a multitude of weapons. The offensive weaponry included 28 Dragonarian disruptor banks, 16 Reman disruptor banks, 10 Transphasic torpedo launchers, 8 Bio-molecular torpedo launchers, 6 infinity-modulating Phaser arrays, 2 Sangheili plasma torpedo launchers, 1 Bio-Pulse beam emitter, 4 Klingon Poleron torpedo launchers, 1 Hyper-Velocity Mass Driver Cannon and 2 Multi-Modulating Pulse Phasers. For defensive systems, this warship was equipped with Class-X advanced shielding, Multi-adaptive ablative armor, a highly-advanced Romulan-Reman-Klingon hybrid cloaking device, and Auto-regenerating hull armor. The ship also was equipped with a number of Transwarp coils and Dragonarian warp cores. This would allow for a capacious supply of power and allow the ship to traverse hundreds of thousands of light-years in just minutes.

“A technological marvel, isn’t it?” said the deep voice of a Ryukaissen Dragonarian. Fox turned to see Rad’err, one of Star Fox’s Dragonarian members, looking over his shoulder.

“What do you mean?” Falco asked.

“That Class-II Dragonarian Warbird belongs to a Dragonarian military legend, Vice Admiral Kyle Anderson... but he is known to us Dragonarians as Kylet’oran Jek’ari.” Rad’err replied. Fox frowned.

“Care to explain why his Dragonarian name is ‘Slain Warrior’?” Rad’err shook his head.

“It was a name given to him a very long time ago, during the Lylat-Kemorainian War. Not even I know why he carries that name.”

“Fox,” Slippy said, “I have an incoming text message... I can’t locate where it originated from. I’m bringing it up on the screen.” Instantly, a message appeared on Fox’s console.

“Star Fox guild, you have a Borg cube heading to your position! Be ready!” it read. Fox had no more that read this when Slippy piped up, his voice on the verge of a frightened scream.

“Fox!! I have a Borg Cube on the long-range scanners, bearing two-one-zero-mark-two-six!” Turning to the Terran at the Comm, Fox ordered,

“Open a channel to the fleet.” The Terran nodded, and a moment later the channel was open. “This is Fox McCloud to all Star Fox members, we have an inbound hostile! Stand to battle stations!” Fox had just said this when a giant cube dropped out of warp speed.

But something was wrong. This cube had a large chunk missing from it, as if it had been blown off. Something had happened to this cube, Fox reasoned, most likely an attack by Species 8472. But why would Species 8472 go back into this galaxy, knowing full well that the galaxy they invaded has the weapons to destroy them?

Suddenly, a yellow-orange bio-pulse beam lanced out from nowhere and struck the cube, obliterating another part of it, followed by two Transphasic torpedoes. The torpedoes slammed into the mid-section of the cube and destroyed it. Fox, along with everyone else on the command center, sat shocked at what had just transpired, unaware that the heavily-modified Class-II Dragonarian Warbird had just de-cloaked nearby.

It took a full minute for one of the Star Fox members to turn his head and call out,

“My god! What is that thing??” Fox turned his head and saw it; a massive ship sitting on the starboard side of the station. This ship was apparently modelled on a great eagle, as it had long, multi-layered, downswept wings and tail-like, trailing surfaces at the rear of the central hull, while the central hull was tapered like a raptor's head. The ship had multiple ablative armor generators installed all over the hull, and Fox could see the Bio-Pulse beam emitter slung under the belly of the ship, along with the crimson color of the hull.

As if someone patched in an audio hail, a voice came over the comm channel.

“Fox McCloud, Star Fox guild, this is Kyle Anderson, requesting permission to come aboard.” the voice sounded friendly, but Fox thought he could detect a hint of anger in it. Opening the telepathic link that he had developed with Krystal, and thought,

Krystal, what can you sense? There was a momentary pause as Krystal tried to sense what was going on, and Krystal replied,

Whoever this Kyle Anderson is, he is far beyond a telepath. He’s blocking me out. Be careful, Fox. Fox took note of the “far beyond a telepath” part of Krystal’s reply, and nodded to the Terran at the Comm station.

“Roger, Mr. Anderson. You are cleared to shuttle over to hangar bay two.” The Terran said. There was no reply as a Hangar on the nose of the colossal ship opened up, and a sole fighter came out, described a number of loops, barrel rolls and other tricks, and headed into the station...

The head Star Fox members assembled in the hangar bay as Kyle’s fighter landed. It circled the outside of the hangar once and phased through the force-field. Once inside the hangar, the ship reared up as a landing strut appeared under the front of the craft, and the fighter settled in for a landing.

Once landed, Fox and the others took a good long look at it. The head and neck part were shaped somewhat like a wrench. On the top of the wrench head was the cockpit, while on either side were light plasma autopulsers, and on the slanted part on either side of the forward part of the head and between the wrench prongs were starfighter-mounted plasma missile launchers. On the other side of the nine-foot neck was what looked to be the body of a bird, with forward-swept wings and a tail that held the propulsion system. Around the mid-section of both wings were two heavy laser cannons—making a total of four, one above and below each wing—with barrels that extended one-quarter the length of the neck. A half-pyramid rose up on both dorsal and ventral areas of the fuselage, and supported four winglets that formed an X. Mounted on the tips of these wings on a perfect 180-degree angle were four of what Fox assumed to be Starfighter-mounted, rectangular-shaped rocket launchers that held two rockets each. Upon a second glance, Fox and the others noticed three ship-to-ship missiles embedded in each wing.

As the cockpit opened, Fox had to shake his head to keep the typical “I’m the leader of Star Fox” look he had. The person he saw in the cockpit was the same person he saw in his vision. Fox daren’t open the telepathic link, as Krystal mentioned earlier that this person was beyond telepathy, and if he did that, this person could detect it with ease.

But whatever Fox felt, Krystal could sense it, so Fox was sure she knew how he felt. But none of this showed on either of their faces as this person approached them. His brown eyes had an undead quality, something that clearly implied that he had died—and was subsequently brought back to life—sometime in his past.

The person stood 6’ 4”, had a slender body, crimson fur, and had scars that ran over both his eyes. He also wore an emerald-green jump suit that was somewhat loose on his skin. But on his hands were a pair of wrist gauntlets large enough to carry a small blade.

As he approached the group, Fox could feel Krystal’s internal tension.

Fox, she said telepathically, there’s something wrong with this person. It’s almost as if... she stopped as the person stopped in front of Fox.

“Vice Admiral Kyle Anderson, reporting for duty, sir.” he said with a raspy voice. Somehow, Fox and Krystal felt that there was something that this new member was hiding...