Chapter 80: Katina
The Cornerian fleet, the Great Fox, and the Unique Horn warped to some random point in space with no planet nearby, putting as much space between them and the aparoids as they could to have time to think on the new unexpected situation.
Before the warping, Fox had quickly given whatever he got from the remains of the aparoid to the Cornerians, and one of their ships warped to a different place with it.
"Many owe you their life, little ones," Pepper said to the fillies through the communication between his flagship and the Unique Horn and including the Great Fox. "Thank you. What you did was very impressive. Once we are done here, we will bring the refugies we saved with your help to Corneria."
The fillies nodded. "But first, we have to talk about these... aparoids," Phantom said.
"Yeah," agreed Fox. "What are these aparoids? You seem to know about them, General."
Pepper sighed. "They are probably the biggest threat ever encountered by Lylat, certainly even bigger than Andross. The research director will brief you on all the details."
On cue, a new window showing clearly an aged frog wearing large glasses badly put on popped beside the General's.
"Hello again, everybody," the old frog exclaimed enthusiastically with a wave of his hand.
Slippy was surprised. "Dad! You're... the research director? You never told me that!"
Slippy's dad looked agitated at his son's words as he looked away embarrassed. "Oh ho ho! Yes, well... Gee, didn't I?"
Slippy had to visibly stop himself from rolling his eyes, but he still lowered his arms and shook his head in exasperation.
"In any case, if I may continue, these aparoids, ahem..." the old frog quickly put this behind by returning to the subject at hand. "I believe it was about 17 years ago..." Another window popped to show the filmed images of an aparoid like the ones that Star Fox and the fillies fought earlier attacking a Cornerian fleet, easily destroying the ships by itself. "A whole fleet was destroyed by a sole aparoid."
"Yeah, these things really were dangerous, and with the surprise effect, that's not a surprise," Sweetie Belle commented. "Kudos to Star Fox for killing one."
"This achievement would be nice if it wasn't shadowed by you managing to kill hundreds of these guys!" Falco shouted.
Phantom shrugged. "We don't count. We're on a whole other level. Like, at least over one million above you guys on the pecking order. Ouch!" She was hit on the arm by Apple Bloom (who was back to normal).
"Be nice."
Phantom glared at her before she mumbled, "I was just telling them that they didn't have to downplay what they did because of us."
"Showing'em yer superiority bah the same occasion," Apple Bloom deadpanned.
"Moving on," Slippy's father said. "We received the Core Memory you retrieved and have started analyzing data from it. But we could understand much more if we had a complete specimen."
"Darn, so the one Fox retrieved got damaged in the aparoid's explosion," Apple Bloom groaned.
"So this means we will have to kill an aparoid while being careful of not damaging its Core Memory," Sweetie Belle thought aloud. "It won't be easy if they all explode upon dying like the one Star Fox killed."
"And it would be preferable to get one from a leader aparoid," Slippy's father added. "If my theory is true, they could tell us the location of the Aparoid Homeworld."
"Sweet! It shouldn't take long to get one," Sweetie Belle said.
"You will get an occasion immediately," Pepper said. "We have detected a distress signal originating from one of our outposts on Katina. However, we're unable to contact anyone there. So we suspect aparoid involvement. you must find the distress signal," he ordered Star Fox.
"No problem at all, sir!" Fox replied.
"We're coming too," Sweetie Belle said.
"Actually, we may need your help elsewhere. We got reports that invading forces have struck several places throughout the Lylat system, and we will need the power of you and your battleship to repel them and help the civilian populations," Pepper informed.
"Mmh... We still should send one of us with Star Fox just in case," Sweetie Belle said.
"Who?" Apple Bloom asked.
At this, the alicorn materialized a bottle, placed it on the floor, and made it spin. After a few seconds, the bottle stopped and was closest to pointing at Phantom.
"Well, I guess the story will now focus on you, Scoot," she said.
Phantom groaned. "Please, can you not start speaking like Pinkie? One pony not making sense is already enough, not mentioning Discord."
Sweetie Belle jokingly waved dismissively at her. "It's a matter of perspective. You just have to think outside the box."
Phantom stared at Sweetie Belle, then raised her arms and shouted, "I'm going!" before teleporting.
Sweetie Belle laughed. "Now I understand why Pinkie always does that! It's so fun!"
Apple Bloom made an exasperated sound.
The Great Fox left the fleet not long after that and warped away.
Katina revealed to be a semi-arid world that Corneria was apparently starting to colonize, outposts being built all over its surface. Not a trace of the aparoids could be seen, but the members of Star Fox and Phantom decided to remain prudent. So Fox decided to go to the surface by himself to search for the signal while the others will cover him from the sky. Phantom decided to accompany him just in case. Being alone was a bad idea.
They found the outpost from which originated the signal, smoke coming from near the base of a tower at the center, and Fox landed his Arwing not far outside of it, Phantom also landing at his side.
They immediately remarked that there was not a soul in sight. Despite the smoke, not even a corpse could be seen.
"It's too quiet..." the Fox commented as he took his blaster and slowly advanced toward the entrance of the base.
"Smell a trap," Phantom said, eyes moving in all directions in search of any little details.
It was quickly revealed that she was right as they barely passed the door that an alarm blared before it closed. Then, four-legged aparoids came from behind the structures to assault them.
Again, these aparoids were insectoid creatures, but lacked wings, instead having legs. The front ones were smaller than the back ones, and there was four pincers on its head around a large glowing cercle that was obviously the eye. They were also much smaller than the aparoids previously encountered as they were about the size of Fox when they were on their four legs, a bit taller.
Nothing as menacing as the winged aparoids from before. These things clearly were the simple infantery. Probably the winged ones had been the equivalent of the battleships, sent first to hit Lylat hard and fast before the Cornerian army and co could prepare themselves.
Thankfully, these aparoid crawlers seemed to lack any form of long-range weapon because they simply charged at Fox and Phantom. Their shell revealed to be very weak too as they exploded from a single hit from Fox's blaster. Their only advantage was their number.
But it didn't mean much against Fox who knew how to fight with a blaster, and it meant even less against Phantom when she herself created two guns in her hands that she used to blasts the crawlers left and right.
"I got your back, Fox!" Phantom shouted.
"Thanks. Let's keep moving."
"Yeah, time to do some pest control. Where's a giant bug spray when we need one?"
"I don't think this would be very effective against these bugs," Peppy said.
"Beside, can't you just materialize one with that Phantom power of yours?" Slippy asked.
"That was what we call a joke to lighten the situation," Falco sarcastically said.
"I knew that!" the frog quickly said trying to save face.
"Uhuh." Falco wasn't convinced.
"Fox! Look! There's a machine gun not far of your position!" Krystal suddenly shouted.
"I saw it, thanks," Fox replied before he charged to grab the weapon left on the ground. With it, he mowed the aparoids by the dozens.
At the same moment, Phantom spotted an aparoid that looked like a mini-tank coming from behind a nearby structure and, identifying it as a bigger threat, sent a Phantom Cube at it to trap it in a different reality where she changed gravity to send it crashing against the base's wall while making it ram a few crawlers on the path.
"Looks like you've got more company!" Falco then warned them.
Indeed, two aparoids that looked like bigger, more bulky and purple-colored versions of the crawlers came out of the base and fired blue orbs of energy at them like mortars, the balls exploding upon impacting anything. These things not only seemed to have more resistant shells, but they also had a barrier that rendered them invincible to weaker shots like the ones of the machine gun. To kill them, Fox had no choice but to charge shots with his usual blaster. Phantom also had to replace her guns by a bigger, more powerful one.
The two purple aparoids were quickly killed along with dozens more of the crawlers and a few more mini-tanks, but more continued to come and Fox took cover behind a corner while Phantom continued to fire at everything that came too close.
"Whew... There's no end to these things!" Fox commented, and Phantom couldn't help but agreeing, wondering if she shouldn't simply blow up the base. "Peppy! Send me a Landmaster, will ya?"
"Landmaster?" Phantom wondered aloud.
"On its way! What's the situation?" the old rabbit asked.
"Well, I've got my hands full, but what else is new? At least, Scootaloo is a great help.
Then, after a few more seconds. "Done!" Peppy shouted. "Here's your Landmaster!"
"Lemme know if you two get lonely and I'll drop by," Falco added while a column of blue light appeared and some tank appeared in it.
"Nah, all I need is the Landmaster!" Fox replied.
"And all I need are my guns," Phantom added as she blasted another mini-tank before she saw a purple aparoid fire an energy ball at her. She gave it a jump-kick and sent it back at the aparoid, killing it in the ball's explosion.
Meanwhile, the Landmaster finished to appear and the blue light disappeared, revealing the colors of the tank which were the same as the ones of the Arwings.
"Transmission complete! It's all yours, Fox!" Peppy said.
There was just a problem... The Landmaster appeared a few dozens meters away surounded by the aparoids.
"Great... Good to see the transmission system's targeting is as sterling as ever," Fox said with a hand on his face before he ran out from the corner toward the tank.
Thankfully, the aparoids between him and the tank were mostly crawlers, and Scootaloo easily eliminated the two mini-tanks and the lone purple aparoid, letting Fox easily reach the Landmaster and enter it.
However, flying aparoids now appeared in the sky. Thankfully not the wasp-like ones, but much smaller ship-like ones with three appendages for steering. Thus a fight began in the sky between these new aparoid flyers and the members of Star Fox in their Arwings. There were a lot of them however so Fox quickly worked to destroy a couple ones that had already been chasing Krystal before he began to target the purple aparoids on the ground. With the Landmaster, he simply rolled on the crawlers and the mini-tanks, not minding them.
Seeing that Fox now could deal with these bugs with his tank, Phantom left his side and flew to the other side of the base to eliminate the aparoids here, dividing the cleaning of the base between them. When flyers passed not far of her,she also made sure to target them to clear the sky and make the others' job easier. But in the end, it seemed that her help really was superfluous as Star Fox proved again to be experts, easily eliminating the aparoids despite their number while keeping each others' back.
It wasn't long before all the purple aparoids were eliminated, but the aparoids weren't done yet as another new kind of aparoid descended from the sky. These aparoids looked like hexagonal caskets with a yellow core, and as soon as they landed, they let out a honeycombed energy field.
"Whoa! What are THESE things?" Fox asked.
"Mmh... This looks bad. Our scans show those things can spawn more aparoids," Peppy informed.
And indeed, Fox and Phantom could see new crawlers and mini-tanks being spawned from these... hatchers. Meanwhile, more purple aparoids also came as reenforcement.
"Ugh... Seriously?" Phantom groaned before she immediately destroyed a nearby hatcher. "Let's hurry to destroy these things before they overrun the base with thousands of newborn aparoids."
The situation wouldn't be so bad if these hatchers weren't so darn well defended, mainly by mini-tanks. It wasn't a problem in the exterior of the base where the Landmaster could easily destroy all of them, but they quickly saw some of the hatchers crawl into the base where the Landmaster couldn't enter, meaning that Fox would be forced to leave the tank to deal with them with his blaster and mini-gun. Meanwhile, the many purple aparoids outside continuously slowed Fox down as he constantly had to avoid their energy balls while dealing with them.
"I'm going to deal with the ones who entered the base. Continue to kill the ones outside with your tank," Phantom eventually informed and instructed.
"Alright. Be careful in there."
"Don't worry. These bugs don't stand a chance against me."
First, Phantom went to clear a depot where large crates would have blocked the Landmaster from entering. Already it was full of crawlers so she decided to use the big guns to eliminate them in groups. One by one, she found and destroyed the hatchers and left the depot to enter the tower itself. After taking an elevator, she entered a hallway full of pests, and instead of eliminating them the normal way, she sent a wave of Phantom energy that got all of them in her control. She then materialized a big wall that covered the whole hallway before she made it advance to the other side where the hallway branched into two others. A lot of aparoids were thus crushed, and Phantom had no problem taking care of the ones that remained in the other hallways.
When she exited the tower, she saw that there were still a few hatchers remaining, Fox being busy blasting purple aparoids on the walls of the base. With her help, the number of purple aparoid quickly diminished, allowing Fox to focus more on the hatchers. As they explored all the corners of the base, they found and killed the last few hatchers, Peppy informing them of how many remained.
Once all the hatchers were killed, it wasn't hard to eliminate the remaining aparoids, and the few flyers that remained flew away.
So it seemed that the battle was over, but Fox had a bad feeling.
"It's not over, uh?" Phantom asked.
As if answering her, a column of purple light appeared below a red honeycomb energy field in the sky. Out of the field then came a gargantuan UFO-shaped quadrupedal aparoid that descended on the base's courtyard.
"Yeow! That thing's huge!" Slippy exclaimed.
"So... The leader, huh?" Fox guessed.
"That thing is giant... and ugly!" Falco commented.
"And no doubt well armed," Phantom added.
"Wait! That thing as a Core Memory!" Krystal pointed out.
"You heard the lady! You gotta get that Core Memory!" Peppy instructed.
"In the purple orb on the spire on top of it, right? Okay, I'll try to not hit it too hard," Phantom said before she flew on the back of the aparoid. But then, the aparoid sent homing missiles that went after everyone, including Phantom, and she had to teleport to avoid them. It wasn't helped that the orb was protected inside the spire on the aparoid's back, and the window to attack it when the spire popped up to reveal it only lasted a few seconds. And of course, it was so armored that simple guns didn't work so Phantom had to create more powerful cannons like the one of the Landmaster.
Speaking of the Landmaster, it couldn't reach the back of the aparoid so Fox had to find something else. Thankfully for him, the aparoid had a second weakness: another purple orb in its underside. While avoiding the missiles and lasers by rolling to the side, Fox fired at it until the aparoid was stunned and forced on its knees. Now, the back of the aparoid was low enough that the Landmaster could get on it by flying up using its thrusters. Finally, Fox could join Phantom in attacking the orb in the spire once the aparoid recovered and the spire started popping up again (as it had stopped while the aparoid was stunned).
It took quite the number of shots, but the orb was eventually destroyed and the aparoid's body was littered with some explosions before it fell lifeless. Fox and Phantom had to escape to avoid being taken in one of the explosions.
Thankfully, the Core Memory was left undamaged, and once the explosions stopped, Peppy pressed them to take it.
"Careful! We don't know anything about what we're up against," the rabbit added.
"I know that," Fox replied. "Hey... It looks like that distress signal's no longer transmitting..." he remarked.
"Mmh... That doesn't sound good," Peppy said.
Meanwhile, Phantom had already flown back on the dead aparoid and was about to grab the Core Memory when she saw a small yellow ship with three thrusters reveal itself behind Fox. Not sure if it was friendly, she shouted, "Fox! Behind you!"
This got Fox's attention and allowed him to see the yellow ship as it flew above him.
"Heh hoo heh! Hey, thanks for helping me out!" whoever was piloting it said to them through the communicator.
Recognizing the voice, Fox shouted angrily, "Pigma!"
"Har har! Long time no see, eh, Fox?"
"The SOS signal... It was you?!?"
"Hoo heh!" The yellow ship was now hovering above the dead aparoid, and a purple tractor beam appeared and began to attract the Core Memory. "Since I'm here, I'll just help myself to this!"
Phantom, however, easily snatched the Core Memory from the beam. "Not if I help myself first."
"Hey!" Pigma angrily shouted.
Phantom then flew up to face the cockpit of the ship, seeing that the pilot was a very ugly fat anthro pig.
"Fox, can you tell me who is this guy?" she asked.
"Give me that!" Pigma shouted.
"... That's Pigma. With Peppy and my father, he was a member of the original Star Fox team, but he betrayed them by allying himself to Andross and leading them to a trap. He's nothing more than a greedy pork who would sell his mother."
Hearing this, Phantom gave a murderous glare at Pigma. "I see..."
Pigma then fired at Phantom but the filly avoided the beams before she materialized a big cannon on her shoulder.
Seeing this, Pigma gulped. "Uh... Waitwaitwaitwaitwa-!" He began to steer his ship away.
Only for Phantom to fire. The beam that came out of the cannon pierced right through the glass of Pigma's ship's cockpit and blew up the pig's head. Without its pilot, the ship then went out of control and, since it was in hovering mode, the thrusters crashed first which caused them to explode with the ship.
Phantom landed beside Fox who was staring at the wreckage and tossed him the Core Memory. Fox barely caught it.
"There. One Core Memory and one roasted pig, all free of charge. You're welcome."
Fox looked silently at Phantom, seemingly divided.
"I'm not sure if killing him was the right thing to do," Slippy said.
"We could have arrested him so he could be judged for his crimes," Krystal agreed.
"Frankly, I'm glad this smelly pig is gone," Falco countered.
Peppy remained silent.
Fox took a big breath before he said, "Pigma could have caused a lot of trouble, and in the current crisis, we didn't have time to lose dealing with him, and especially not arresting him. It was either letting him escape and risk him causing problem again or... do what Scootaloo just did. Eliminating him was the best option. Now, let's go."
Fox walked toward his Arwing beyond the exit. Behind his back, Phantom rolled his eyes.
Idiots. Killing scums like him is not just the best option, but the only right option. No need to make a drama about this.
On an oceanic planet named Zoness, Apple Bloom watched as an army of zombified aparoids on the ground slaughtered their still alive brethren while Sweetie Belle easily cleared the sky of any winged bugs with the help of the Unique Horn and a Cornerian fleet. Sadly, by the time they arrived, a part of the locals were already killed by the aparoids and the few Cornerians that had been protecting the planet had been in very bad posture.
Worse, it seemed that the aparoids had the ability to infest both machines and organisms to turn them into new aparoids, and the infestation was fast. Sweetie Belle stopped counting the number of Cornerian fighters she had to destroy because of this. "Thankfully", most organisms didn't survive the process so the number of aparoidedified fauna they ended up having to fight was limited, and they arrived just in time to avoids things from getting too bad, starting by clearing the ocean.
Now, the aparoids were almost entirely wiped out of the planet and it looked like they will be able to move to another world in the next few minutes.
Then, they received a communication from Phantom.
"We got an intact Core Memory. Get your butts here as soon as possible."
"Roger," Sweetie Belle answered. "Are you done Apple Bloom?"
With a flick of her leg, Apple Bloom disintegrated all the zombies. "Eeyup. Not a single aparoid remains on the ground where Ah am. What about ya?"
"There's still a few aparoids flying around, but I think that the Cornerians will be able to deal with them. Let's join Scootaloo."
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You misspelled Fox’s name here
11166552
Thanks. Corrected.
Hey Lucar.so,I find this new and incredible Theme you Could use for the Story,but…it has to do with Pokémon.more specifically,witn Legend Arceus.
I don’t Know if you finished that Game yet and the Theme could Spoil you a pretty Big Twist so I wanted to Know if you already finished it
11166569
Already finished it, and I think that I know which twist you're talking about.
11166582
Oh,so then I will not Spoil you if I show you…
This?
https://m.11166601
You don't spoil me at all. One of the best themes of the game.
11166602
Yeah it’s pretty Cool,although this actually a Remix.
So…any chance you’re including this?
11166621
I don't know. I don't see how I will be able to since Volo is... well... dead by now. And Cynthia already has her own theme.
11166639
That when the Fact that we are currently dealing alternate universes of Pokemon comes in.
Just slap a alternate that did Win and is still alive/become inmortal and done.that,if you want.
11166667
I will see.
I remember playing the game but I never got further than the third level.
but at the time I didn't have a memory card on my gamecube.
11166667
Heck, Rainbow Rocket could just pick one up from a universe which conveniently happens to be a century or so behind the rest (the daguerreotype has already been invented in-game, just barely).
and another VERY good chapter for this very good story..nicely done Lucar...also...when are we going to see sweetie void use some of that dynamax energy on herself?
asking cause then she culd be her own spaceship...and not gona lie that wuld be VERY op and awesome
11167213
You will have to wait a bit. This won't happen before a few more arcs.
11167216
wait a tick...i was actually right with that guess?!!!
i was just guessing...but i guess its going to be against the big army that you keep hinting at?
or against the starcraft universe?
11167556
You will see.
11167564
ok
cant wait then!
also..thank you for being so forward with us...most authors on here are not like that...at least for the good story's
11167651
You're welcome. I try. ^^
11167658
o also..as a side note...will she be using laser beams while doing the screw attack at some point??
i ask cause the MOST op thing i can think of so far would be sweetie void doing the screw attack while dynamax'd and having her body having GIANT lasers coming out of them like when kirby was on her back with the GIANT OP sword thing
So... The developers were bored they didn't know what to make the game and put 3/4 of the game as filler with Fox chasing Pigma?
Good to see then that Pigma was taken
11167728
I actually hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the idea.
11167931
More like a bit less than half the game, through three missions. And the chase had its use as it allowed Star Fox to re-enter in contact with Star Wolf, leading Star Wolf to enter the conflict and give an invaluable help against the aparoids. After, this also caused some problems, mainly that because of Pigma, they lost a lot of precious time which allowed the aparoids to attack more planets, including Sauria (Dinosaur Planet from Star Fox Adventure) and even Corneria (almost ending up in Pepper's death. While he was saved, the aparoidedisation he was subjected to made him sick to the point that he was forced to appoint Peppy to take his place as General during the events of Star Fox: Command).
11167991
The animation that plays when you counter the Experiment boss, which is the giant monster in Cataris that you fight after getting the Gravity Suit when everything is frozen over
11167994
Oh yeah I didn’t think of that
11168022
Ah yeah. Well, she wouldn't care. Sweetie Belle can be as brutal when she wants.
11167980
your welcome!~...also..if you use that..can it be in a battlefield like starcraft...exept EVERYONE there is an enemy of some kind??
like in the doomslayer universe?
cause that would be a fun ride
11168974
Maybe. I will see.
11169098
thanks!~
Do should be does.
He so deserved that. Pigma comes back every adventure to cause more harm.
11546069
Thanks, corrected.
And yeah, Pigma just refuses to die definitely, like Andross.