ɐ - ɴ - ʇ - ɥ - ə - ɯ

Fox yelps as he wakes up.
He's startled and unsure why. He's unsure of a lot of tings. His name, for instance. Fox McCloud.
We know his name. He does not.
However, he's unaware that this information is lost on him. He just is.
He exists in the darkness.

"Spaceship," he says to himself, before making airplane noises with his mouth. He's unsure why he's doing this, but much like his name, he doesn't take it into consideration. "SPACESHIP BEEP BOOP BEEP BEEP."

Instinctively he pushes a button on the arwing console.
Whirring mechanical grinding.
Console lights flicker on and off before dimming.

The computer runs a diagnostics check.
Loading bar stuttering and freezing like some kind of an eskimo with brain damage. He laughs and wonders out loud if the narrator is racist.

"I wonder if what the narrator just said about eskimos was racist," he considers out loud, like I told you he would. "Or ableist?"

"Probably!"

The ship doesn't give him answers. It just struggles to check itself for damage.

Funny thing about things that is damaged, see, it becomes much more difficult to figure out what's wrong with yourself after you've taken so much damage.

Lights flickering, he can barely make out the cracks in the durable plexiglass windshield. However, as if buried, he can't see anything beyond that.
Pure darkness. A void that envelopes the spaceship with him in it.

He thinks of space and of all the pretty stars and how it's never dark out there, never for real with all them lights to guide him.

He thinks of the glimmer of hope it always carried and its absence weighs heavy on him.

He feels sad for himself and sad for the spaceship.
The pounding in his head perhaps sympathetic towards his metal companion, his noble science fiction steed, as it were.

"Poor spaceship," he sniffles, tearing free a sticky wad of blood from his sinuses, which he gags on in the back of his throat. He retches and coughs it up into is lap, fighting back the intense urge to vomit. Swallowing. Focusing. "Yucky."

His mind as blank as the starless void around him for what feels like a brief moment ut lasts much longer in the reality of the universe.

Beeps of error and warning from the computer jolt him from his stupor and he becomes aware of his sadness and pain once again.
The ship's pain. The spaceship.

"Did I name you, spaceship? I will name you now. I will call you Barnabus and tell you that I love you, because that's what friends do. I love you, Barnabus."

Another voice, overlapping his proclamation of love with their own.
Higher in pitch, very familiar.

A different name, lost under the new name of his ship.

Muddled and trampled under his own words.
Lost in his own lack of understanding.

He sniffles again. His snout leaking. He wipes it off onto the sleeve of his father's jacket and examines the beige sleeve in the dim light.

His eyes widen.

"Oh no," he whispers to himself. "The fluids of mortality."

Blood. His nose is bleeding.

"Barnabus, do you leak the fluids of mortality as well?"

The ship doesn't answer. It's unsure if he thinks the ship can talk, but it can't. It never could, even when it was functioning properly.

At least not in a conversational sense. Like, if he asked it a question, like he just did, it wouldn't understand. Because it's a spaceship.

"Spaceship," he says sadly, caressing the dashboard gently with his matted furry fingertips.

The words DAMAGE REPORT flash on the screen for a moment before he realizes, mesmerized by the new flickering colors, that Barnabus awaits confirmation.

Pixeating and glitching, he confirms with a trembling finger.

1. RADAR TRANSMISSION LOST

"No mappy. Sad. No know where I is."

2. NOVA BOMB SYSTEM FAILURE.

"No explosions. No need."

3. FRONT ENGINE NOT DETECTED.

"Not detected...?"

Fox wonders to himself if it's smashed, banged up, or gone forever.

4. PLASMA ENGINE ONLINE, DAMAGE SUSTAINED.

Fox blinks, unaware how close he was to being vaporized.
Oxygen tanks online. Unsure how much air left.
Fox holds his breath for a moment, cheeks puffing out.
Sharp pain in his ribs.
He coughs and doubles over.

5. G-DIFFUSER SYSTEMS OFFLINE.

Fox hears that in the panicked version of the voice that told him it loved him while he said it to Barnabus.

A map of the arwing flickers on screen. Right wing missing, left wing red.

Cockpit and plasma engine yellow.
Barnabus is hurt. Perhaps dying.

Fox's eyes fill with tears. Something that doesn't register with him on a logical level, just something he feels emotionally.

A new message pops up on screen, evoking a sob of hope from his lungs.

"Barnabus," he giggles through his tears. Through the pain. "Barnabus, we're gonna be okay."

The message reads:

WOULD YOU LKE TO SEND A DISTRESS SIGNAL?
Y/N

He gleefully taps Y until it registers.

The screen turns yellow. The lights flicker off. His eyes widen in fear and he begins to whine.

"No..." his breath picks up and he tries to literally hold it. His hands to his muzzle. "Nononononononononono...!"

Flashes of light.
Green.

DISTRESS SIGNAL TRANSMITTED.

A sigh escapes him and he closes his eyes.

"We are on our way, Fox!" Another voice. Rather, another memory of one.
It burns the inside of his throbbing skull.
Leaning back against his seat sends a stabbing sensation through his brain.

Whiplash.

Gritting his teeth sends sharp pain from his cracked and bleeding jaw into his gums and skull.

Leans forward again, relaxing his mouth and whining, his head throbbing. Brain inflating. Skull cracking.

The glimmer of the metal handle of the emergency kit.
With some effort he leans over to grab it and pull it between his legs. His robotic shins.

A flash of a memory of a gurney as notes play slowly, seemingly arbitrarily on an old piano.
Looking down at his feet, when he still had them.

He's scared, in the memory. Like the lights on the console, the emotion flickers on and off in the present, pulsating over the serenity washing over him.
He hasn't taken the pills yet, has he?

He remembers the brief moments surrounding now, past and future as they wash down his throat, as the doctor takes a saw to his leg, as each note he plays on the piano vibrates through him.

He doesn't play music so much as he presses down the higher keys, resonating with each individual who played the piano before him.

A voice, shrouded in static, bitersweet.

"Mom's old piano, huh?"

Father.

"She would have bee so proud just to see you try to play it."

The sadness is there, the sound of his voice is lost on him.

A desperate attempt to remember. To hear it in his head without the distortion.

But the memory as a whole escapes him.

"Yer daddy woulda been so proud of you, Fox."

Fox.
His name.

"He always told me how great you was. How great you was gonna be."

The uncertainty of how to respond to this spans his lifetime.
He doesn't know how he feels, he simply feels what can't be explained. Pride. Disappointment.
In himself and in his parents. The universe around him.
Context. Pride and disappointment in context.

"Thanks, Pep," he says, the memory slipping through his fingers.

Inventory:
three [3] packets of cracker
one [1] dehydrated steak (protein[powder])
three [3] bottles of water
one [1] roll of bandages
three [3] packets of three [3] painkillers
five [5] adhesive medical strips
one [1] small book of naked ladies (cornerian)
three [3] condoms (what?)
one [1] pill, cyanide

Fox lets the stale crackers dissolve in his mouth while muttering the word protein to himself nonsensically.

The taste like blood, and he wonders how much of that he's swallowed since he's crashed. Blood.
He wonders where he crashed. How he crashed. What he was doing.
Fox doesn't remember.

A name dancing on the tip of his tongue.
A floating head and floating hands in the vacuum.

Oi... konny?

Visions of a destructive hubris he never bore witness to. Planting a seed.

The sound of a car starting up, muffled through the wall.

The glow of a television with an unidentifiable picture.

Explosion.

His grip tightens on his knee. Fingers digging into his skin. Fox doesn't remember the last time he saw his mother or father.
The lights flicker.
Eyes glazed over.

Bandages wrapped around the palm of his hand, he's flexing before his face.
Not damaged or injured. A product of boredom.

He thinks of Falco. A name he wasn't aware he could think of.
A name that brings emotions he very slowly processes.

Several bits of paper and plastic littering his artificial feet.
Something about G-Forces. But what about Falco?

Is competition an emotion?

He swishes a mouthful of water around his mouth and spits it out at his feet before taking a sip. He isn't thinking about wasting it, but even if he did, he's unsure just how much blood he can swallow before it makes him sick.
A small gulp.

"Barnabus..."

Moments pass.

"Hey," Fox says.

"Hey, Barnabus. It's me, Fox. I remember that now. You remember that now?"

Nothing.

"I didn't."

He laughs to himself in the silence. He tears open another packet and uses the water to swallow three more pills. He coughs, almost chokes on them.
The painkillers are taking hold.
His bandaged fingers numbly dancing in front of his face,

"I didn't ask for this, did I?"

Radio signals in his brain producing static.
Static the vulpine is numb to.

"Maybe I did, Barnabus. Maybe I wanted revenge and justice and peace. I think.
Or maybe just peace of mind. The details are fuzzy. That's the thing about waiting for answers in a vacuum, Barnabus. You don't know what you're making up. You don't know what's real or what exists as a delusion to make you feel better about yourself. You don't know how much you lie when you barely remember who you are. Am I sympathetic or just a selfishly driven asshole. Like Andross. Am I just a victim of my own hubris?"

His eyes widen.

"Andross," he says, his eyes wide. "Andross Oikonny."

"Fuck," he says, his words echoing nowhere. "Barnabus, would you like to hear a joke?"

Nothing.

"Think of this, Barnabus. A man aloft, eighty feet high, walking a tight rope. Another man on receiving end of fellatio from an arachnid – a spider, to be precise. They both have the same thought. What are they thinking?"

The ship doesn't answer, again, because it's a ship.

"This isn't working," he says, his voice growing desperate, his fingers trembling as he tears open another packet. "It's not working it's not working it's not-"

The locker slams shut next to his head and he only flinches internally.
Falco's smug face, beak grinning on the other side of it.

"I'm gonna get so much fucking split-tail on leave, Fox."

"Hrm," Fox stops himself from looking up from cleaning out his locker into his gym bag. "That so?"

"You bet your shitnuggets bro. That shit fixes wagons, baby."

"Neat."

"Katt. You know Katt, right?"

"The feline mercenary?"

"Hell yeah, bitch. I'm gonna pound that pussy 'til coughs up a hairball. Hoo rah!"

Fox is actually kind of astounded at what was just said to him. He looks up at Falco from his gym bag.

"Wow. That was legitimately the most disgusting thing I have heard in a long time."

"What's got your scrot, bro? You aint some kind of homo is ya?"

"I dunno, Falco, reach down my pants and see if my dick is hard for your shirtless body and your empty fucking head."

"Ew, Fox," he says through a grimace. "That's not fucking cool, dude. Don't you ever talk to or about me like that again."

Fox doesn't respond. He finishes emptying his locker and shuts it.
He zips up his bag.

"Hey," Falco says, his anger rising. "I'm fucking serious, dude. Don't."

"Doesn't feel too good being objectified, does it?"

Falco frowns. "That's not funny."

"I agree," Fox says, throwing his bag over his shoulder and walking past him.

Falco laughs nervously and misses the point.
"Haha, at least you know it, bro. You aint no comedian. Hey, what are you gonna be doing on leave? You gonna see Krystal?"

"Nah."

"What then?"

Fox stops, pauses.
"I don't know. I've got nowhere to go."

"Fuck, bro. I should start calling you Annie. Short for like. Annie social. Ha! Haha!"

"Sure thing, Falco." He's walking again. "See you."

"See you, Annie! Haha."

Fox cringes at the memory in the dark. He drops the cap to his feet, fumbling to take it off the water bottle with his numb fingers and takes a sloppy sip, spilling it down his chest and his father's jacket.
His dead father's jacket.

Killed by Andross.

Visions of suffering.

Something else. Anything else.

Visions of slippy. His plane taking a hit.
Slippy crying out to him. Fox, specifically.

"Fox! Heeelllp meeeee!"

He looks so ashamed of himself aboard the Great Fox.

"I'm s-sorry, Fox."

"Don't be sorry, little guy."

"I've cost you so much time and money. I cost you your revenge today. I'm useless."

He's not wrong, Fox thinks to himself.
But I can't tell him that. I can't ever say it.

"No," Fox insists sternly. With his free hand he lifts Slippy's chin to see the tears welling up in his pathetic eyes. "Listen to me, Slippy. The important thing is that you're okay."

Slippy closes his eyes and shakes his head.
Tears rolling down his cheeks.

"You're more important to me than any amount of money, or revenge, okay? You're worth more than that, okay? Slippy?"

He looks up at you into your concerned eyes and sniffles.
Eyelids fluttering closed, he leans forward and kisses you gently. A moment of shock before you feel something that scares you, something that you don't understand. You push him away.

"Slippy, I-"

"I love you."

"No. Slippy-"

"Listen to me. You're the only one who's ever cared about me, Fox. B-back at the academy, when everyone always picked on me, you'd stand up for me. You made sure nobody was ever meant to me again, even when you weren't around. You were so strong, so confident. You're my hero. Y-you're the reason I became a polot. I... I love you, Fox. You make me want to be better, Fox. N-not just for you, but for me too. When I'm with you, for the first time in my life, I believe I can. You're the only reason I don't feel like I'm completely worthless. You're the only reason I don't want to die anymore. I love you, Fox. I love you."

He grabs your hand. His eyes full of hope.

"I love you.."

"Slippy, I..."

You look away. You can't bear to look at him. You can't bear to say what you're about to say, but you say it anyway.

"I think you should leave Star Fox. I don't think you should return to your position as mechanic aboard the Great Fox. I think you should go home Slippy. Go home and find someone to reciprocate your love. You deserve that."

"Fox! No, please don't do this! I-"

"That's an order, Slippy. Go. Now."

You've crushed him. It's not the first time something like this has happened, but perhaps it's the last.

You think of Krystal.

Tears fill your eyes.
You wonder if you loved them, both of them. You wonder if that's why you sent them away, or if you pushed them away before that could happen. To avoid giving them or yourself an opportunity to distract yourself from your ambition.

Nails digging into your palms, blood leaking from your fist.

"Shut up, Fox," you sob.

Fingers tearing open a new packet. The shakes subside and your breathing calms as you think of the song Peppy would sing you through your anxiety attacks.

No, not the song, you realize, the song is unimportant.
Irrelevant.
What you think of is Peppy's soothing voice. Peppy singing to you at all.
Your godfather's fingers brushing gently across your forehead, petting you.

Comforting you as you fall asleep.

As you feed away.

The cyanide capsule melting on your tongue slowly.

"Tell them I love them, Barnabus," you say. "Tell them I always loved them and I'm sorry."

You hear Barnabus respond, broken through the static.
"*KRRSSHHK*...-ox! Fox! Do you read me? We got your signal! We're on our way! Do you co-*KRRRSSSHHHK!*"

Funny, you think to yourself, Barnabus sounds a lot like Peppy.
That's funny, you think to yourself again, but it's also kind of sad.

And then you feel pain.

And then nothing.