FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A gloomy red star cast light across the ruins of the system. Where six planets once orbited, were now five asteroid belts. Out past the fringe, shattered hull plating and starship pieces twirled slowly. A half melted wing section rotated around, revealing the logo of the Starfox team.

As always, it was peaceful onboard the Great Fox during night mode. The ship's dark interior was highlighted here and there by nightlights splashing pools of calm blue up the walls. Orderly constellations of buttons glowed on the walls. The distant hum of the engines and cool, crisp air whispering in from vents.

Fox curled up on the windowsill in his quarters. Straight out of bed and clad only in his boxers, arms hugging knees to his chest and head resting on them as stars and nebulae scrolled by. In the moment he felt about as small as one could possibly be, and it wasn't owed to the grand view of the universe.

Rather, it was a certain biomechanical horror. Something that waited beyond the fires of warfare. Scorched, calloused, charred, even as it delighted in the warmth. Swollen up to suitably godlike proportions. Dividing itself and growing, losing restraint and becoming uncontrolled until he latched onto the world like a hideous parasite. Tentacles laced through toxic soil, wavering in anticipation.

Venom. A mote of poison looming large, as if Fox were plunging into it sans arwing. Not toward the likeness of Andross but the reflection of his twisted spirit. One that wanted to snare all of lylat in an eldritch web.

Even that trickster entity on Sauria hadn't replicated it very well. That one had not been able to get inside his head, to leave an echo of itself slithering between folds of gray matter.

He opened his eyes, releasing a ragged sigh. It faded into heavy silence for a long while. It wasn't an option for a leader to admit huddling in fear. His team's courage relied on his own. Forward. That was the only path, regardless of what baggage came along for the ride.

Fox wanted to scream. Cry. Curl up. Anything but..

A familiar tone blared as the symbol of the Cornerian army glowed on a monitor.

General Pepper appeared, flooding Fox's quarters in the harsh flourescent lighting of his office. Rather than hurling the usual "GEN'RAL PEPPER HERE", the canine looked tired and nearly surprised that his call had been answered.

"Fox? Ah, Fox! I trust all is well with you over there?"

Having thrown on an undershirt, Fox leaned back in his chair with crossed arms.

"We're all good so far. Then again, it's pretty early in the day,"

Pepper meanwhile gave a curt nod to the statement, not overly interested in the answer.

"Mmm...Well, something's come up. I've got a mission for you,"

Behind the General's face, Fox's desktop could be seen. A peek of white mountains and snowy woodland.

"I don't know. I was thinking about going on vacation soon. Some place cool and snowy,"

And oddly familiar

Pepper clasped his hands and leaned forward.

"Well...I can't literally give you a blank check- Corneria still needs roads and schools. But we can give the minister of the treasury the shock of her life,"

Fox was eyeing the collection of liquor on a rack above his desk, but now a frown made its way across his muzzle as his attention returned to Pepper.

"It's that serious, huh?"

"Patch me to your bridge. I'll brief your team in fifteen,"

-

A broken intersection of asteroid belts was displayed for the team on the holoprojector.

"The mess you see here, is our most recent survey of the Ketu System. A known pirate stronghold for a while, but this new activity is cause for concern,"

The hologram scattered and reformed into the image of a polar bear. Albeit one that looked more suited to a swamp with his deep green, splotchy coloration. Face was pinned back in a snarl as he held a cigar in his mouth. A military beret covered one of his ears while a glassy black cybernetic compound eye bulged opposite the natural blue one.

"The culprit is believed to be Samedi Polar. Mind it's pronounced Poe-Lar. He's very particular about it. Former test pilot for Venom, last known to have crashed the Wolfen III prototype on Zoness. Apparently he survived and found a new line of work. Our current theory is that this planet busting weapon is one of Andross' old contraptions and came from a cache only Polar would know about. All that's irrelevant at this point though.."

Fox masked the snarl on his face with a sip of tea. Andross. There was no rest from that ape. He cast a sidelong glance at the others. God, it was a scene right out of the old days too. Falco and Slippy's eyes were glued to the holoscreen while Peppy worked in the command seat, parsing all the minute data they were being sent. ROB at the helm.

"As we speak, there are over a hundred known pirate leaders gathering at Ketu II. Some kind of upcoming party if our intel is correct,"

Peppy nodded thoughtfully.

"The one thing space pirates respect is power. I'd say Polar has plenty of new allies. And will be promising plenty more loot if they help his raiding efforts. Oh, get a look at this,"

On the holoscreen, an image of some twisted scrap metal appeared, with the crudely painted Starfox logo on it.

Fox frowned, "Making a point with his target practice, huh? Maybe a warning,"

"Nah, that punk is challenging us!"

Falco was no longer slouching in his seat. His feathers were up in irritation.

"Can't wait to see the look on his face when he sees the real deal is here and not some rusty targets!"

Peppy swiveled his chair around to face the bird, pointing his glasses at him, "What this means is that he's been preparing for us. So cool that head off already!"

"We'll have to proceed with extreme caution,"

The last statement the hare directed at Fox, who realized suddenly all eyes were on him. He cleared his throat.

"Peppy's right. Until we know how that weapon works, we shouldn't rush in. This guy won't hesitate to use it on us,"

The General gave a curt nod to the old hare.

"Peppy, we both know that if you were in the Cornerian army, you'd be sitting at my desk right now. I'll leave the finer details up to your judgement. Get that weapon offline before Polar's trigger finger starts itching again. He's running short on things to blow up in his own system,"

-

Down in the hangar, Falco prepared for the mission in his usual way- jamming out in his cockpit. Today he had discovered a leftover bag of fast food and so had himself a grease soaked, finely aged taco for breakfast as well.

"Doin' it, doin' it and doin' it well! I represent Taco Dojo's spicy soft sh-"

His beak froze inches from the taco. Eyes bugged out at something outside his cockpit. It was a pudgy, buck toothed creature covered in purple fur. Something adapted for the vacuum that burrowed into asteroids, a pest that hitchiked on starships at times. The bird was deathly afraid of the beady black eyes staring at him.

"Ahh! AAAHHHHHH!"

Thrashing about in shock, he bumped his music up and his high pitched screams harmonized with it as feathers and taco filling went flying. It served to warn Slippy, who sighed and went to get the tongs and bucket kept for such occassions.

Fox watched from a catwalk. His crew was their old selves. A smile crossed his muzzle at that. Blaster locked, loaded and holstered. Knuckles cracked. He started down the stairs to join them.

[Good Luck!]

A trio of engines flickered in the trail of the comet as it crossed the outer limits of the system. They broke off in unison, setting across a short gulf toward the first of many asteroid belts. The belt was already being swallowed in shadow as a jagged shard of ice eclipsed the sun. Peppy briefed the team as they approached.

"There's a stray planetary fragment up ahead, which will block the inner system radar. We can sneak in to the capital world by skipping between these dead zones. Polar may have shot himself in the foot with all this showboating. But stay on alert anyway,"

Small rocks whipped past, increasing in size and frequency until surrounding them. Enough obstacles to get the team warmed up as they weaved deeper inside. Everything seemed to be running smoothly. But then, one of the passing asteroids learned a new trick. The fighter-sized rock made an improbable hairpin turn to intercept Fox's course. Four canisters extended as it came tumbling head on. Only with a quick trigger finger did Fox blast through the rock with a short burst that detonated the underlying mine.

"Fan out, we got mines!" Fox ordered.

"Trouble already..this could be bad," Peppy added.

The arwings zigzagged on their own routes through the obstacles. Falco blasted one of the mines, cursing as he was rattled on the fringe of the blast. Fox bounced between him and Slippy, helping to intercept more of the objects while dodging the ones that came at him. Tense going, but they managed to get through the worst of it intact.

The rocks thinned out abruptly as they entered a "clearing" of sorts. Fox didn't want any part of it, skirting along the border of the arena. Slippy broke the silence not long after.

"I've got enemy ships!"

Sure enough, a scattering of red shapes were highlighted lurking on a pair of large asteroids forming a sort of gate at the far end of the clear stretch of space. Tinted cockpits blended perfectly with mirrored black, shard shaped craft. Flaring engines lit the craters as they blasted off to meet the intruders.

"Y'all better mop these bogeys up quick!" Peppy advised.

Fox only flicked a switch, his fighter's wings extending and the engine giving a kick as he boosted off.

Four of them swooped down behind him and he tilted away from the ensuing volley of lasers. Pulling close to an oblong asteroid, he let the rock fill his view from above. It raked space with sharp stalagmites and ridges, no challenge for him to dodge even upside down. He raced around obstacles while lasers blasted chunks out of the scenery in his wake. He pulled up, into a nose dive toward the surface. Cutting sharply into a canyon, only to pop up right side up behind the bogeys. Green beams lanced through them in quick order, with the last left as a fiery comet that shattered one of the towering spires.

Slippy grunted as he was rattled by a hit, but returned fire and scrapped the ship shooting at him head on. Another burst swept across space, finally catching another with a bloom of directionless flame. The frog eagerly searched for more targets as he dipped under a fragmented disc shaped asteroid. A swarm of a dozen more pirate fighters were waiting and several dozen targetting computers locked on to the lone frog.

"Boost out of there, Slip!"

Fox nosed upwards from the array of red dots. Once Slippy was clear, he loosed the nova bomb. A loud magnetic crackle as the projectile was launched. It pulsed with energy as it faded into the distance to twinkle like a cold star.

A blue tinted explosion blossomed, shattering the asteroid into a shotgun blast of shrapnel propelled at railgun speeds. It shredded the bulk of the pirate fighters. One small shard splintered the glass of a cockpit, followed by a geyser of boiling blood spewing out into the vacuum.

The survivors were picked off rapidly by Fox, when Falco swooped down to flank them. They were cut down in pitifully little time in the crossfire.

Already a golden crescent was dawning over one side of the planetary chunk. More concerning though, was the second round of lights flaring amongst the rocks around the clearing.

"More inbound ships!"

Peppy's eyes kept bouncing between the radar and the overlaid grid where a red cone was starting to sweep in on the fringe of the battlespace. They were going to be bogged down, but couldn't leave an enemy alive since a single stray ship could warn the literal army of pirates and planet destroying superweapon that were close at hand. All hell was about to break loose. Probably their arwings as well for that matter.

Falco laid into them, destroying the bogeys as they emerged and quickly switching targets. Applying his boosters liberally. Fox did the same, and Slippy managed a few kills of his own. On the radar, a pair of the red blips broke away from the thinning swarm. They cut off at different directions, passing the far side of the clearing.

"Those two are making a run for it! Catch 'em!"

Peppy echoed Fox's own thoughts as he gripped the control stick for dear life and cranked his boosters to their absolute limit. Inertia held him back in the chair and pressed his vulpine dangly bits in a firm grip.

As he came up swiftly to the far side of the clearing, he caught an explosion in the scattered debris. One of the fleeing fighters must have collided with an asteroid. That left the last one for him to focus on. With a little stroke of luck, the mission might not be fumbled after all.

There- a flickering of engines passing between tumbling rocks. Fox was on its tail in an instant. The fighter sunk into his targetting recticle. And then flashed into a glowing orb, exploding a split second later. Fox's finger had never touched the trigger.

Something blasted straight through the expanding fireball of wreckage, headed straight for him. No mistaking what the craft was- a Wolfen fighter.

"Mind if we cut in, Starfox?"

Back in the clearing, Falco banked hard to avoid the Wolfen swooping head on towards him. It passed close enough to make out the rose on its hull. A feline snarl was all the warning he had before the craft swung around on his tail and took aim.

"Once I get ahold of you, they'll be able to hear you scream even out here. Heh heh heh!" Leon hissed as he tracked Slippy from above.