Deep in the darkest recess of its forestry abode, the beast stirred. It had slept for a long time, but now its slumber was ended. Its eyelids slowly pried open, letting the image of its den soak into its mind. It rolled over, lifting itself away from the nest upon which it would lay no more. The creature’s spine clicked, once, twice, and finally a third time as it rolled its horned head upon its shoulders. The beast’s lips parted, drawing back across its shiny teeth as its jaws parted, sucking in air, before letting out one long, loud roar.
Or, as it would be more accurate to say, one yawn.
Twilight Sparkle rolled her right shoulder, easing out the stiffness acquired by sleeping on it, as she peered at the small clock on her bedside table. It was already gone ten o’ clock. Twilight blinked slowly as she thought to herself; yesterday had been pretty hectic, she deserved a lie-in. Slowly she pulled herself to the edge of her bed and rolled out of it, landing on all four hooves in a half-crouch. Even with the late morning she was having, she still felt like taking the day slow. Twilight pried her wardrobe open and withdrew her dressing gown, a dark mauve, soft velvet affair, and slipped into it. Dressing gowns were like a walking lie-in to the purple student, and hers was especially cosy, to maximise late-morning-by-wear efficiency. That, and Rarity had insisted that her friend have only the best.
Twilight lazily trotted downstairs, into the library’s kitchen, and smiled. Spike, having gotten up a lot earlier than her, had made them both breakfast, and then fallen asleep again waiting for her, still sat at the table with his head resting on his crossed arms.
“Spike,” Twilight said, gently nudging the junior dragon awake, “wake up.”
Spike lazily opened one eye, rotated it to look at the unicorn, and then jumped up in his chair, wheeling his arms as he nearly lost his balance. “Twilight, don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“Sorry Spike, I just thought you might be hungry.” Twilight said with a slight grin. Spike still looked a little annoyed. “This looks delicious, by the way,” she complimented as she sat down; that earned a smile.
“Yeah, pancakes are probably cold by now though,” the dragon noted.
“Not a problem,” Twilight replied, as the pancakes became enveloped in the mauvish glow of her magic. Within seconds she released them, sat in stacks on each of the diners’ plates, steam rising off of them. She lifted a knife to cut off a small piece and sampled it. “Perfect,” she said, smiling at her assistant.
Spike appraised the steaming stack with approval. “Promise me something? Never teach Sweetie Belle that spell.”
Twilight paused mid-chew, a look of mild horror on her face, as she remembered what had happened the day before, involving the little white unicorn, an oven, breadcrumbs, eggs, milk, and an attempt to convince the mayor that the horrific smell of burning was perfectly under control. “No. Never.” Twilight said simply, before shaking her head to dispel the memory.
The two late risers tucked in, silent for a few moments as they simply enjoyed their meal. Eventually, though, Spike posed a question. “So, what are we doing today?”
Twilight thought for a moment. “Nothing, if I remember my schedule properly. Lazy Day.”
Spike raised one eyebrow at her. “Okay, let me rephrase myself: what crazy adventure do you think we, and I mean all of us, will end up being drawn into today?”
The unicorn groaned at the question. “To be honest, Spike, for once I’d just like to have a normal day, you know? No troublesome dragons, no hot-headed contests, no urgent letters from the Princess, just a perfectly normal, regular day.”
* * *
“I’ve been waiting for you, Star Fox!”
Deep beneath the surface of the planet Venom, an angular, agile metal craft flipped up on its edge, before pulling a hard turn to its left, slipping down a narrow corridor of dark, cold steel.
“You know that I control the galaxy.”
The spaceship, coloured white with blue weapon pods on either side of its main hull, shot forwards as its pilot engaged the boost function, narrowly slipping through a closing blast door.
“It’s foolish to come against me!”
Sat behind the Arwing’s controls, the pilot furrowed his eyebrows. His enemy had to be down here somewhere, but where was he? He took a right turn, before following the tunnel’s gradual curve to the left, entering a section where the passageway turned cylindrical. The section was fairly short, opening up into a large cavern which was mostly empty.
“Now you will feel TRUE pain!”
Mostly. As the Arwing entered the room, a huge, disembodied head, fringed by a mane of white hair, loomed towards it, opening its chimp-like muzzle in a cruel laugh, displaying its enormous, blunt teeth. Oh look, there he is.
The head pulled back, as a pair of floating, golden hands drawing forwards to take place on either side of it. Sat in his Arwing’s cockpit, Fox McCloud frowned. This was going to be tough.
* * *
The last half an hour in Ponyville weather office had been pretty quiet, given that most of the active pegasi were out working for the day. They needed to be, too, the skies were overcast when the Mayor had ordered clear skies. For some reason, whenever a team cleared away enough to let even a glimmer of sunshine in, the sky fogged over again in minutes. It was at times like this that something extraordinary was needed.
As if by Celestia’s will, something extraordinary arrived. The doors of the weather office blew open as a mutli-chromatic blur swept in, stopping in the middle of the room and alighting upon four sky blue hooves. “Sky Corporal Rainbow Dash, reporting for duty!” the pegasus announced her own entry.
“It’s about time you showed up, Dash!” Peppered Rain, the office’s manager, said, “you’re the only hope for our town! The clouds out there just won’t budge; we need them taken out, fast!”
“I won’t let you down, sir!” Dash acknowledged, before tearing out of the door again. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but for some reason this pegasus in particular worked extremely well in any job with a tight chain of command, which to her was only another reason why she’d excel as a Wonderbolt.
Right now, though, there were more important matters to hoof. Once she was well within the cloud layer, Rainbow Dash began bucking, kicking, punching and head-butting her way across the sky, obliterating any and every bank of dark fog in her way, spiralling outwards from the centre of town. In less than a minute, not a cloud could be seen in the sky.
“Done and done!” Rainbow said, re-landing just outside the weather office once she’d finished, crossing one hoof in front of the other and closing her eyes above her cocky smile to look cool as everypony cheered. It took her a second to realise that none of her collegues were cheering. She re-opened her eyes and looked at them, only to find them all staring back up at the sky with unhappy looks on their faces.
Rainbow turned and looked back up at the handiwork. Already the sky was beginning to darken again, near-black thunderclouds forming out of the very air she’d just cleared. The blue pegasus frowned; it was going to be another one of those days, wasn’t it?
* * *
Andross roared in pain, shaking his head from side to side as his face stretched and warped like a rubber sheet. It was a sickening sight, but Fox held firm – he wasn’t in any danger while the enormous head writhed, and he wanted to make sure the job was done properly. His foe was a menace to the galaxy and a terror to civilisation, and if Fox didn’t finish him for good, he mighty resurface and start his campaign of destruction anew. And if that happened, the Star Fox team would likely have to fight him again free of charge as punishment for letting him go the first time. Or they’d just get sued.
As the skin seemed to begin tearing away from the monstrosity’s skull, it was consumed by a loud explosion, flames erupting from behind the hide, ripping it well clear and buffeting the Arwing. Fox struggled to get the starship back under control, as it bucked and kicked around beneath his seat, threatening to stall and drop towards the planet’s core. Fox wasn’t even sure which direction that was in by this point, but he wrestled with the control stick, pulling the fighter back towards whatever was left of Andross. Fox glanced up to where the beast had been brought low…
“Only I have the brains to rule Lylat!”
Fox’s jaw went slightly slack. Before him floated an enormous brain, with a pair of eyes attached by thick nerves hovering just before it. Beneath the colossal think tank hung a writhing mass of tentacles, nervous signals sparking off of their ends into the stale air.
“So Andross, you show your true form!” Fox stated once he’d recomposed himself. It only made sense that someone who prided himself on his genius above all else would be a giant brain, of all things.
Andross didn’t reply with words. A metallic, high-pitch screech emanated from his coiled mass, and the eyeballs shot forward on streams of nervous electricity, aimed at either one of the Arwing’s wings. Fox barrel rolled the craft out of the way and off to the right, as the wings moved forward into all-range mode, the eyeballs in hot pursuit. Glancing at his radar, Fox waited until they were almost on him, then executed a perfect flip and came around behind them, lining up his twin lasers on the speeding spectacles.
Hopefully Andross wasn’t too quick-minded.
* * *
Thump.
The sky was still dark over Ponyville, and it was unsettling everypony.
Thump.
The residents had been looking forward to some nice weather, but it didn’t look like any was coming, no matter how hard the weather teams tried.
Thump.
The weather office was in a state too; persistent weather was a nightmare to try and sort out. If today’s clouds wouldn’t go when they tried to make them move, how long would it be until they did?
Thump.
Other ponies, though, had purely practical reasons for wanting some sunshine. Applejack, for one.
Thump.
She’d planted a good number of new saplings over the week, and they needed sunlight to take root properly. If they didn’t get that, they could end up dying off.
Thump.
Not that she let the worry of it keep her from everything else that needed doing on the farm. Today, she was doing what she was always doing: bucking.
Applejack lifted the final pair of full baskets from the tree she’d just finished work on onto her back, and then easily walked over to the cart she had on the nearby track, emptying the baskets into it. The cart was pretty full now, so she slung the baskets in the back, hitched herself up to it, and began walking back up to the barn.
Granny Smith was stood outside the barn when Applejack arrived, looking out towards the clouds over Ponyville. “Might want ta keep yer head down, Applejack,” she said as her granddaughter drew closer, “there’s a mighty storm a’comin’.”
“Ah know, Granny,” Applejack replied, “Anypony could tell that.”
“Not the weather,” the aging mare shook her head, “Somethin’ different. Ah can feel it in mah blood.”
Applejack blinked; Granny Smith, prophesising? On the one hoof, it was common thought that her grandmother wasn’t all there, and there had been occasions where Granny had given Applejack herself reason to agree. Then again, while old, she was still far from senile, and was certainly right about more than a few things that would look crazy from an outside perspective – the lead up to the Zap Apple harvest, for instance. If Granny Smith was right about what she was saying now…
Applejack looked back at the dark clouds and frowned. She hoped this was nothing, but she didn’t believe it would be.
* * *
“Gaah!”
Fox grinned as he banked left, narrowly missing the huge horror as it jolted with pain, suffering from the repeated laser shots to its lower half. Andross started shaking violently, starting to collapse in on himself, accompanied by minor crackles and spurt of nervous energy firing within and escaping from his mass. His tentacles flailed wildly, scrambling to grab the Arwing, or the walls, or anything within reach, of which there was nothing.
The Arwing swung round as Fox prepared for one more attack; he didn’t trust Andross to stay dead after this, not if he was left here. He lined up the fighter, and readied to press the button that would release a Smart Bomb straight at the maniacal menace.
“If I go down, I’m taking you with me!” Andross shouted, his disembodied voice echoing through the vast cavern. His whole form, the floating brain, seemed to surge, swelling up with energy, before releasing a pulse, a ring of bright, colourless light, all around it. The blast wave hit the cavern’s walls, cracking them, buckling the dark steel and breaking pipes. Only a moment later, the room erupted, bright, chemical-fuelled flames burning into the room, explosions going off from every surface, blasting scrap and shrapnel around the cavern.
“Aaahhhhh!!!” Fox yelled as the Arwing went out of control, being flung around by the repeating eruptions like a lump of useless scrap metal. He screwed up his eyes to try and repel the blinding glare as he tensed up, bracing against impact after jarring impact as broken pipes and blasted steel crashed into his ship. The chaos continued relentlessly, flame after flame, explosions after explosions, the whole chamber, the whole planet coming down around Fox’s ship in a blinding storm of fire and steel.
There was nothing to see but white fire…
There was nothing to feel but his Arwing being shaken apart and broken…
There was nothing to hear but roaring flame…
“Don't ever give up, my son.”
Fox’s eyes snapped open. That voice! But how… it couldn’t be! He looked up, out of the cockpit. There, before his ship, was something he desperately wanted to see; the tunnel out, the same way he’d come in. But between him and that was the last thing he’d been expecting to see down here; another Arwing. Coupled with that voice, that could mean only one thing:
“…Father!?” Fox barely dared to ask. His father, alive, after being betrayed to Andross all those years ago? How?
“Follow me, Fox,” James McCloud spoke again as the lead Arwing entered the exit tunnel. Fox grabbed on to the controls before him, throttling the craft to its full speed – whether it was possible or not that he was even there, Fox didn’t want to fall behind his father in the narrow corridor of an underground complex that was built like a maze and currently exploding.
“This way, Fox,” James said as he turned left at the first intersection. Fox followed without pause, fighting against his own momentum as he pulled the Arwing through the tight corner at top speed. James took the next right, and Fox hesitated – hadn’t he come from the other direction on his way in? With only a half second left before his ship collided with the intersection, Fox made up his mind and headed right – if this was real, he wasn’t just going to abandon his father down here.
As Fox’s craft turned in the junction, he caught a glimpse of what had laid wait for him in the left tunnel – it was completely blocked, and rapidly collapsing in a barrage of steel and flames back down towards the planet’s centre that he was trying to escape. The tunnels only allowed a split-second before the walls blocked hi view, and Fox checked ahead of himself. His father was still up ahead, in a tunnel that, while still shaking itself apart and spewing occasional gouts of flame, hadn’t collapsed in on itself. Yet. James couldn’t have checked both passages before deciding which way to turn, so how had he known where was safe?
“Never give up; trust your instincts,” his father answered the unvoiced question. Okay, that was slightly odd – in all the stories Fox had heard of his father’s prowess and abilities, being psychic was not one of them, and apparently now he knew what Fox was thinking. That said, it was word-for-word the sort of thing Peppy Hare was prone to saying mid-battle, and was apparently a lesson of great importance in the first Star Fox team. Battles were fast and dangerous, and time spent thinking was time spent being a sitting duck. Don’t think, just act, and apparently that applied to down here too.
James took the next left, and without a pause Fox followed suit, narrowly escaping the cave-in of the intersection itself as he boosted away from it, hot metal clipping the tips of his Arwing’s folded-back wings but failing to catch the craft in full. As the pair approached the next junction, a huge slab of metal peeled away from the wall between them, falling back towards Fox, trying to swat him out of the air like a troublesome fly. Fox flipped his ship onto its right wing and pulled up, narrowly escaping the giant steel panel but not the wall of flame pushing it downwards. The starship struggled through, jerking and jolting as it was buffeted by the flames, but staying true to its course and clearing the fire in seconds.
The path ahead was empty.
Fox blinked, surprised, before realisation set in. His father must have already made the turn, but Fox was blinded by the tunnel collapse and missed which way he went, and now had only a handful of seconds to decide a path for himself.
He didn’t know which way to go. He couldn’t know.
But he didn’t need to.
Don’t think.
Fox tilted the Arwing left slightly, then back over to the right.
Just act.
Right felt somehow better, so he stayed there, listing gently as he approached the crossing.
Trust your instincts.
Fox glanced to the left as he entered the intersection, sure that he’d see another barely-escaped advancing wall of death.
Except that wasn’t a wall of death. That was a clear tunnel. A clear tunnel, with a retreating Arwing in it. That was the way out, and he had no room to turn into it.
Fox’s stomach dropped with dread. This was it. He turned to face forwards in his ship, to be confronted by what he feared – a dead end.
Except it wasn’t full of fire and explosions. Instead a huge sheet of intense purple light spanned the corridor, crackles of white lightning arcing across its surface like countless electrically-bodied insects. It was painfully bright, forcing Fox to squint, and as the Arwing drew closer, the tunnel beginning to break apart behind it, a low, droning hum filled the air, reverberating the air and making the entire ship vibrate, the controls beneath Fox’s hands and his seat practically buzzing with energy. It was painful to listen to, so much so that Fox had trouble keeping himself merely covering his ears with his hands and not attempting to claw them off, and all the while that bright light, and that incessant buzz, where overwhelming everything Fox could see, hear, feel or think.
He heard one last thing before he hit the barrier and blacked out.
“You’ve become so strong, Fox.”
