Disclaimer: I don't own Star Fox. I wish I did, though. Non Nintendo characters are mine. E-mail me if you wish to use them.

Note: Sierra Caridaay was introduced in my first fic, Never Had A Family. Thus, this story takes place after that one chronologically.

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Blaster drawn, Fox walked down a long, dark hallway. His team had disappeared, and Fox had a feeling they were down this endless dark corridor. All Fox could see was a soft blue light ahead of him. He trusted that the walls her on either side of him. For all he knew, they were endless pools of blackness, stretching on into infinity.

A sudden ringing laughter startled the vulpine, and he spun on his heels, finding his blaster pointed at a young fox kit, a girl no more than eight. He lowered his blaster.

"Hello," Fox said, a feeling of ambivalence washing over him. "Are you lost?"

"You will find the ones you're looking for," the kit said, ignoring Fox's question. "But..."

"But?" Fox echoed.

The kit winked and giggled again. She seemed to think this situation terribly funny. Fox sighed. He didn't have time for this. He turned away from the kit, but there she stood in front of him.

"How did you...?" Fox stammered.

"But..." the kit said again, skipping behind Fox. "It will catch you."

"What's 'It'?" Fox asked.

He got no answer, and turned again. The kit was gone. Fox was unnerved, but he pressed on, heading towards the light. It seemed to be glowing brighter, but it flickered like a candle. He increased his pace, suddenly worried the light would go out.

A candle shines brightest just before it flickers out. Peppy's voice rang in Fox's mind. Fox hurried, but didn't run. Something told him he shouldn't run.

The glow was almost blinding, but it flickered wildly. Turning a corner, he now saw the flickering blue candle. It immediately went out.

Fox knew Falco was dead.

Fox was running now, running towards an empty blackness, the kit's giggling echoing all around him.

"It will catch you," the kit giggled, and Fox ran faster.

Fox ran forever, running through the black abyss that was this hallway, his heart hammering against his chest. Finally, Fox came to a door.

It was a plain black door, touch-activated, as some doors were, and for some reason, it glowed. Fox stood in front of the door, panting.

Even when he focused both ears on the door and shut his eyes, he heard nothing. None of his senses told him anything was wrong. But everything was.

Putting his laser away, Fox placed a paw on the door. It dilated, and Fox stepped in.

Falco's limp body lay, bleeding, against a wall. The falcon's throat had been torn out. Fox's mouth hung open, and he wanted to scream, but nothing came out. Fox took a step back, and then became aware of another door opposite Falco's lifeless form.

It dilated on contact, and Fox saw Falco and Slippy laying in a cage. Fox could see their stomachs rise and fall, and sighed in relief. They were either sleeping or unconscious. Looking around for Sierra, he found the frog shackled to a wall, blindfolded and gagged.

"Sierra?" Fox said just above a whisper.

Sierra jerked in response, and Fox rushed over, removing the blindfold and gag.

"Fox, you shouldn't be here," Sierra whispered fearfully.

"What are you talking about?" Fox asked, eyeing the shackles as he tried to figure out how to break them.

"Get out of here!" she hissed. "Go, before It finds you!"

"What's It?" Fox asked.

Sierra whimpered, looking past Fox. Fox turned, his paw resting on his blaster.

A black, amorphous liquid oozed toward Fox. He took a step back, firing a shot at the ooze, but It seemed unaffected.

"Run!" Sierra yelled, and Fox bolted.

The thing oozed over Sierra, and Fox had only to glance back to see that she had shared Falco's fate. Fox looked back ahead, and the kit stood in front of him once again.

"You can't run from It," she giggled, a sinister tone in her voice all the same.

The ooze flowed into the room, but Fox was rooted to the spot. As It flowed over his feet, Fox felt his body relax, even as his mind was screaming at him to run. It slipped up his body, and Fox felt his mind go numb. Something inside him was still screaming, but it was distant an unimportant. The thing engulfed Fox completely, and Fox felt life slipping from him.

Fox woke up screaming.

"Jeez, Fox, are you okay?" Falco growled, sounding worried anyway.

"F-Falco," Fox stammered, out of breath and in his quarters on Great Fox. "I..."

"What's wrong?" Peppy asked, appearing in the doorway beside Falco. "Nightmare?"

"Y-yeah," Fox said.

"The way you were screaming, we thought you were dying," Falco said.

Fox said nothing. He had been dying, in his dream. It was only that, though. Just a dream. Everyone was fine.

"Look, I'm fine," Fox said. "Sorry for waking you all up. Go back to sleep."

Falco shot Fox a worried glance before he left, and Peppy had looked worried the entire time. They always worried about his nightmares, though. He had been having them ever since his father died, so they were nothing new. This one was completely different from the others, though. He had never dreamed something that had seemed so real. His teammates had died in dreams before, but never so vividly. Fox shivered and got out of bed.

It was two in the morning in General Lylatian Space Time, so the rest of the Star Fox team was asleep. Or trying to get back to sleep, after Fox woke them all up. Dragging his exhausted body into the shower, he practically fell in, allowing the hot water to run through his fur.

As a vulpine, Fox took the longest in the shower with all his fur, aside from Slippy, who loved water and usually used up the hot water tanks. Fox also had a tendency to lay in the shower for at least an hour, as he was planning on doing now. He knew his tail would take hours to dry, but he didn't care. Closing his eyes, he fell into a semi-conscious stare for awhile, thinking about nothing in particular.

When Fox resurfaced, he assumed it had been awhile, because the water was cooling down a bit. Fox turned off the water and shook a bit instinctively, poking his head out from behind the shower curtain and finding his towel.

After he was dried off, except for his tail, which was still wet, but not soaking, and dressed, Fox walked to the cockpit, where he spent most of his time lately.

"Good morning, Fox," Rob said in his monotone voice. "You are up early."

"Yeah," Fox said distantly, flopping down in his chair. "What time is it?"

"Three-thirty am GLST," Rob said.

Fox nodded. Time meant almost nothing to Fox, who spent so much time on Great Fox that his body was now set on space time as opposed to a planet, like many other spacers. Falco was like that, too, but the rest of his team had to use alarm clocks and sleep deprivation tactics to get themselves on the GLST schedule.

It had been a few months since Fox had saved Dinosaur Planet, and the rest of Lylat, from Andross. Again. He never gave up. Fox was confident he had destroyed the ape for the last time, though. the only problem with that was jobs were few and far between, usually involving chasing bank robbers or other such nonsense. But work was work. The holo-screen in the center of the cockpit popped up. Fox, startled, looked up.

"General?" he asked, sitting up.

"Star Fox, we..." the holo-screen crackled with static. "Something blocking... Radio messages. Need... Stop them..."

The holo-screen shut off, and Fox sighed. It was something to do, at least. He pressed a button on his chair to open a link throughout all of Great Fox.

"Get up guys and gal," Fox said. "We've got a job."