//------------------------------// // Mission N°2: When sh*t goes down // Story: Star Fox Equestria // by Pronche //------------------------------// The Princess of the Night was sitting at her balcony, enjoying her sky as much as possible before being obliged to lower her moon in the next minutes. A sigh of relief escaped her muzzle, knowing that her duties were over for a few hours. She was going to retreat in her chamber when she saw a lone shooting star, going to the north. How strange. Usually, the shooting stars and meteors showers were her doing but not this one. Her horn was lightly flaring in her teal aura, trying to have a grip on it but it was completely useless. It was as if this meteor had a mind on its own. "Beautiful, isn't it?" the Solar Princess asked, smiling smugly. Her younger sister nodded. "Indeed but it refuse to cooperate." "Well, where is it heading?" "To the Crystal Empire." "Let it crash there, I'm sure it will not harm anypony." Luna looked at her sister. "I hope so. We could ask our niece to send a research team after it. Maybe they'll find why it didn't bend to my will." "It's not a bad idea, I'll notify her of your idea in the morning…oh, and while I'm at it. How is our little gift for Fox progressing?" "The scientists are almost done. It wasn't easy to extract the data from his computer and reassembly them from it. Their firepower is far superior than what we anticipated. I'm sure he'll be happy to know he now have unlimited Nova Bombs." Luna's and Celestia's gaze followed the object as it streaked across the sky, becoming somewhat more visible, and witnessed its impact behind the mountain ranges in the distance which separated various regions of Equestria. ------------------------------------------- Later that day, in the afternoon The Sun Princess was sitting on her golden throne, reading a parchment about the futures taxes for Baltimare when a guard entered the room. “Your Majesty! We received a message from Princess Cadance, the Pegasus who delivered it said it was urgent.” Celestia raised an eyebrow and took the scroll with her magic. She opened it and read its content for a few seconds before closing it and reducing it to ashes with a simple fire spell. “Send somepony to the guest room where Fox McCloud is staying and tell him to come here as soon as possible.” “Of course Princess.” A guard saluted and left the throne room, galloping in direction of the area reserved for the guests or ambassadors. As the white Alicorn was watching the Earth Pony leaving, a knot formed in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t know why but she had a very bad felling about this. As if Fox wasn’t going to come back from this mission. “I hope my instincts are wrong about this.” -------------------------------------- “So, you want me to go to the Crystal Empire and find a team of scientists who went missing because of a shooting star which crashed a few kilometers away from the capital?” The tall pony in front of him nodded. “Yes. Normally, they could have been lost because of the snowstorms but it’s not the season for them and the sky was clear of any turbulence last night. Their colleagues were waiting for them to come back at noon but they never arrived.” “I see. I’ll begin my research by the place where the object crashed and start from there. It may be nothing as it can be something very serious.” Fox rushed out of the Castle, where his ship was waiting for him. When he entered inside and closed the cockpit, his screens showed that everything was in the green. The second after, the Arwing left the ground and flew at full speed to the north. According to his computer, it would take him barely half an hour to reach his destination. The vulpine activated the auto-pilot and admired the landscape. “I wonder what the others are doing right now. Maybe crying on my grave about how cocky and stupid I was to fight Oikonny alone.” He whispered to himself, slightly smirking. After what seemed to be an eternity, Fox spotted a long trail in the snow and some pieces of metal of different sizes and shapes on the ground. Fox frowned. “This is not what a shooting star is composed of… as far as I can remember.” Suddenly, his map showed a red dot less than three kilometers away. The mercenary immediately activated his laser cannon, just in case of. Finally, his Arwing arrived at destination and after flying a few laps around the crashing site, he landed less than fifty meters away. Here, there was no wind, the sky was covered by grey clouds and everywhere around him the ground was coated in white. This place was cold. But not as cold as Fichina, fortunately. The orange fox slowly walked to the ‘shooting star’, his blaster raised in front of him. Seven ponies were laying on the ground, not moving at all. Fearing the worse, Fox made his way to one of them and checked for a pulse. Just as he thought, he found none. As he approached the strange object, his eyes widened. “Those colors, this design…no, it can’t be…” Before his eyes was standing a Venomian Fighter, an Invader III from the Lylat Wars, in a very bad shape. A ship completely outdated and worthless in comparison with today’s standards. What was that thing doing here? Was it a remnant of the war ? And how did it ended here? While Fox was in deep thoughts and his guard low, the same mist he encountered in the Everfree Forest flew out of one of the bodies and split itself in six, each part flying to the other corpses. It was the sound of something moving against the snow which alerted the vulpine. His left ear twitched and he turned his head in direction of the origin of the sound, finding himself in front of seven ‘zombies’. His P.D.A emitted the beeping noise saying there was a high amount of magic near his position. The second he saw the blue and dark fog escaping from the noses of his enemies, a snarl left his throat. “It seems there’s someone or something who really want to get rid of me.” Gripping his weapon tightly, Fox raised his arm and pressed the trigger a few times, aiming at the pony in front of him. Hearing the sound of a magical beam launched at him, he did a backflip to dodge it and killed the Unicorn in a single shot. Before he could do anything else, an Earth Pony tackled him from his back, sending him to the ground. His blaster glided away from him. Fox rolled on the side and jumped on his feet, unsheathing his combat knife. A Pegasi tried to hit him on the head but he sidestepped and left a deep gash in his left side. Red blood escaped the pony’s body and soiled Fox’s flying jacket. Another equine bite him in the leg, forcing the vulpine to hit him in the barrel a few times and finally slice his throat. The mercenary didn’t have any remorse in killing them a second time, he knew they were already dead and couldn’t feel the pain he was inflicting on them. Three of them were already down and soon, the other four would follow. Quickly, he retrieved his blaster and faced his opponents with one weapon in each hand. “Bring it.” He whispered, his teeth bared and growling. Suddenly, the group lunged at him, thinking at least one of them was going to injure him but it was a very stupid move. Stupid indeed because the orange fox knew they were going to do something like this. He delivered a roundhouse kick in one of the scientists’ head, heard the sound of the neck snapping, planted his knife in the maw of another and pulled the trigger a few times, each laser finishing its course in the chest of the third. The three bodies dropped on the ground, definitively dead this time. The only one still on his hooves was the Pegasus he injured sooner. The equine was standing less than ten meters away from him. A single bead of sweat trickled down Fox’s left cheek and he was breathing as if he had jogged for five minutes. “What do you want from me?” The pony chuckled. “To tell you the truth, I wanted to meet you in person, away from prying eyes and ears.” “Okay and could I know why do you want to see me dead?” “Well, unfortunately, you’re on our path so we need to get rid of you to accomplish our plan. We want revenge from the Sun Tyrant, her useless sister, her student and the Bearers. They all deserve to perish in Tartarus for what they did.” Hearing this, Fox deduced his identity and smirked. “So, you’re the Nightmare.” “Exactly. I’m surprised that a disgusting creature like you is still alive, especially after your fight with the Timberwolf King. Your presence alone makes me want to throw up.” “Oh don’t worry, you’ll don't have to worry about those kind of things after I kill you.” The creature laughed maniacally, with his mouth wide open. “You should first take care of your friends in Canterlot. I think they’ll need your help against those steel birds. You know, those which looks like this one.” Fox’s eyes widened. “This fighter crashing here and the fight… it was a bait to keep me away from the Castle!?” “That’s right, and at this exact moment, they’re reducing the city to ashes. You can still go and try to save them but it’ll be too late.” Tightening his fist, the orange vulpine frowned and let out a deep, primal growl of anger. It was his job to protect the ponies against this kind of threat and nobody was going to stop him from saving the day. “We’ll just see about that. You don’t know who you’re fighting against, I’ll prove you wrong.” The pony didn’t answer and in burst of light, he disappeared from Fox’s sight. The latter didn’t waste a single second and rushed back to his Arwing. When he was inside, he immediately took off and flew to his objective. Fox pushed a few buttons on his holographic keyboard and a single sentence popped on the screen in front of him: [Hyperdrive activated. Location set: Canterlot] A small portal appeared in front of him and the moment after, he wasn’t in the Crystal Empire anymore. Mission No. 2: Mission Completed