A Day in the Life of a Star Fox By Fox McCloud (Rewritten by Vixette Fulvain)

Hi. Fox McCloud here. I don't feel like talking about Arwings or Star Wolf or even Andross today. That was yesterday. We already defeated Andross and saved the Lylat System. That's all over the Corneria City News. I would rather give you a break from the well-known, and tell you about the next day. It's not as exciting as the mission itself, but I hope you will find it interesting anyway. This was the day after we defeated Andross...

***
My eyes fluttered open. All I could see was the white-tiled ceiling. I sat up in my small bed. The walls were made of that off-white stucko-concrete stuff. I'm not an archietect, so I wasn't sure what it was. Probably plaster. The floor was grey carpet. The addition of the fluorescent lights made the room seem too bright when they were on. They weren't, of course, so the room was nearly pitch-black. The only light came from the cracked-open door. I had to leave it slightly open or I couldn't see at all. I yawned loudly and stretched. I was wearing my red and white striped pajamas. They were kind of dorky, but I've seen worse. I kicked the covers off and got out of the warm bed. I turned on the lamp on my nightstand. The room instantly lit up. I looked down at a picture of my family when I was about four. We had gone to a fair. We, meaning my mom, my dad, and me as a kit. We were posed in front of the Ferris wheel, my dad holding me, and me, laughing and smiling with my little sharp teeth. My mom had her arm around James' shoulder. I sniffled a little. I missed my family. My mom was killed from a bomb Andross planted in our car. It was meant to kill my dad. Andross was always jealous of James because of Vixy. But Andross got his chance to kill James many years later. I was about seventeen. I'm eighteen now, so it's pretty fresh in my mind. My dad was the former leader of the Star Fox team. Back then the members were James, Peppy Hare (who's still on the team), and Pigma Dengar. Pigma actually used to be a fairly nice guy, though I never trusted him like I do Peppy. I sensed something bad about him from the start. I sensed right. It turns out that Andross bribed him to lead James and Peppy into a trap on Venom. Peppy escaped, but James didn't. I remember that day all too well.

    I was waiting at the hanger for their return. I was with Bill Grey, my best friend back at the Flight Academy, and his parents. I was looking out the window, waiting for three ships to land. Only one did. Horrible thoughts ran through my head. Unfortunatly, they came true. I watched, nearly in tears, as Peppy solemnly walked to the hanger. When he came through the door, I ran to him and asked,"Where's James? Where's my dad?!" Tears were running down my face.      "Fox," Peppy said quietly,"James--he's..."
     "He's dead, isn't he?" I sobbed.
     "I'm sorry, Fox--I'm sorry..." He was also in tears. I looked at Bill. His grey, floppy ears drooped. I saw his eyes water. Everybody's eyes glistened with tears for James.

     I came out of the daydream. I shook it off and set the picture back on my nightstand. I stood up and looked down at my tail. It was a mess. The red-orange fur pointed in all directions. I grabbed a brush off my dresser and dragged it through my ratty tail. I brushed until it was glossy and smooth. Tails are really neat, actually. You can hit things with them, wag them when you're happy (I don't normally do that, but dogs do it a lot). I even used to play tail ball with Bill and a few other tailed friends at the Flight Academy. It's like volleyball or ping-pong, only you have to use your tail. I loved that game.
     After that, I looked down on the floor, next to my bed. There sat a pair of fuzzy pink bunny slippers. "Oh, yeah," I whispered to myself. Last night, after we had defeated Andross, the team had a "party", if you could call it a party, celebrating the fall of Andross. Falco had hung up a disco ball and popped some dance music into the huge stereo in the den, or rec room. Only Falco and Slippy danced. Of course, Falco said he was a better dancer than Slippy, which then led to a dance contest. But anyway, back to the slippers. We had grabbed some gifts for each other while we were on Corneria, getting awards and stuff. It was VERY difficult to escape from the crowds and press. I mean, we were heroes, legends even. We went into a mall and grabbed gifts. I got everyone, including me, a little model Arwing. Slippy got everybody a pair of fuzzy mittens. Not the best gift, but Slip doesn't have the best taste. Peppy got cool mugs with our names, the Star Fox logo, and an Arwing on them. I HAVE to ask him where he got those. And Falco got everybody a pair of those dumb bunny slippers and dared us to wear them. And I wasn't about to chicken out. My plan was to wear my uniform, but to wear the slippers instead of my knee-high, metal space boots.
I took my uniform out of my dresser and set it on my bed. I got dressed. First, I put on my pine green jumpsuit. My favorite color is actually yellow, but a yellow jumpsuit?! Yuck. Next, I put on my black belt with the neat silver triangle buckle. No purpose for it, really. Just to look nice. Then, I put on my little grey jacket. It only goes to my waist, and I always roll up the sleeves. I tucked my matching pilot gloves in my pockets. I tied my red bandana around my neck and put my comlink on my head. Last, I put on the slippers and headed to the den. The den is really big, maybe about half of a basketball court. There's a big couch, a thirty inch screen TV, satillite TV(that's about all you can get in space), a Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 of course, air hockey, fooze ball, and ping-pong tables, the biggest magizine rack in the Milky Way, and a small library of books. There is also a kitchen where we cook our meals. We take turns cooking. We have a chart set up on the wall to see who cooks and who doesn't. It was about seven AM when I got to the den. Time for breakfast.
     "Good morning, Fox," Peppy chirped as I entered the room.
     "Good morning," I replied.
     "Hey, you remembered, fuzzfoot!" Falco teased as he looked at my slippered feet. Peppy and Slippy, who were sitting on the couch, turned around and looked.
     "Oh, I forgot about that," Slippy sighed.
     "Me too," Peppy muttered.
     "Where's my prize, Falcman?" I joked.
     "You don't win prizes in dares, Foxy Loxy," he sneered.
     "Did YOU remember, Falco?" Peppy smiled.
     "Well, um..."
     "NO!!!" Slippy, Peppy, and I shouted in unison. We all laughed, except Falco, of course.
     "Go on, Fox. Go get your boots on and help make breakfast. It's our turn," Falco grumbled. I ran to my room, slipped my boots on, and ran back into the kitchen. Falco was already there, washing his wings. I budged in and washed my paws. It was hard to dry them very well, since every little hair gets all wet and stuff. Falco had it worse. His "hands" are covered with tiny, soft feathers. After I dried my paws as best I could, I called out the kitchen door to Peppy and Slippy. "What do you guys want?" I asked them loudly.
     "French toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon!" Slippy blurted.
     "Did ya hear that, Falco?!" I called over my shoulder.
     "Yeah, yeah," Falco grumbled (in case you haven't noticed, Falco is not a cheery guy). I went back into the kitchen.    The kitchen looks like my room; and every room in the Great Fox. White tile ceiling, white plaster walls, grey floor. The kitchen has grey linolium instead of carpet. Otherwise, it looks like a normal kitchen. Stove, oven, microwave, sink. You know. Falco took eggs, bacon, and orange juice out of the huge, white refridgerator. I got out bread and pans. And we made breakfast. We cracked the eggs, scrambled half, dipped the bread in the other half. You know the drill. We brought it all out, piping hot, on huge trays and set it on the big dining table. We all sat down and ate.
     "Mmmmmm, Fox. This is delicious! And you said you were a bad cook," Peppy blurted right after his first bite of Frech toast.
     "Hey! What about me?! I made it, too!" Falco exclaimed in disgust.
     "We already know you're a good cook, Falco. With all your bragging," answered Slippy. No one said a word till the dishes had been washed and we were all sitting on the couch, deciding what to watch on TV. Peppy had the remote.
     "OK, guys, what is it? The Corneria City News, Katinday morning cartoons,(Katinday is like your Saturday) or Earth TV?" Peppy asked.
     "EARTH TV!!!" we all shouted together. Occansionally, we tap into Earth satillite TV and watch a little. Believe it or not, our satillites can recieve old Earth satillite signals that drifted into space.
     "OK! Just a second, guys," Peppy chuckled as he took out his laptop computer,(which is probably hundreds of thousands of times better than the very best supercomputer on Earth) and booted it up. He typed a bit, moved his finger around the electronic mouse pad. After about half a minute of fiddling, the TV screen showed a human TV show instead of Lylatian TV. "Cool," I commented. Peppy was a computer expert. We all were, but Peppy could find just about anything in the Milky Way. The TV displayed the primitive chemical rockets humans use to get to space.
     "He-he! Look! Chemical rockets!" Slippy laughed. We all laughed our heads off as a parachute popped out of the back of a landing Earth space shuttle.
    "How primitive! Did you see that little parachute?! HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!" Falco roared. We were in tears as a Saturn V rocket took off.
      "CHANGE THE CHANNEL PEPPY!!! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!" I yelled. Peppy, still laughing out loud, changed the channel, then changed it back. We erupted with laughter once more.
     "THEY STILL USE THOSE TIN CANS TO GET TWO INCHES INTO SPACE?!!!!!" Falco roared as a space shuttle took off. We howled so hard our cheeks were still red a half hour later.
     "OK, OK that's enough," Peppy chuckled as he turned on the on-screen TV guide.
     "Hmmmm, let's see... Addam's Family... Blue's Clues...
     "Hey! Let's watch Blue's Clues, whatever that is," Slippy suggested.
     "Sure," Peppy agreed as he changed the channel to Blue's Clues.
     "Blue's Clues, Blue's clues! We gotta find another pawprint, that's the first clue, we put it in our notebook, now what do we do?" a human in a green shirt on the TV sang.
     "Who's Blue?" Slippy asked.
     "It must be that fake blue dog behind, um, what did he say his name was? Steve?" I answered.
     "Yeah, Steve. But didn't he say WE gotta find another pawprint?" Falco asked with a smile.
     "So wouldn't this be..." Peppy continued.
     "INTERACTIVE TV!!!" we shouted. We watched for a few minutes, and we figured out that when something has a blue pawprint on it, you have to tell Steve. As Steve walked along on the screen, behind him we saw a top hat with a pawprint on it.
     "Look, a clue!" we yelled at Steve.
     "My shoe?" he asked confusedly.
     "No, a clue, you stupid human!" Falco yelled impatiently. This went on for another clue (we missed the first one while we were talking) until the show was over. Afterwards, there was a commercial about the channel Blue's Clues was on. The channel was called Nick Jr.
     "A channel designed just for pre-schoolers," the TV said.
     "They mean that cool, interactive show was for pre-schoolers?!" Falco asked angrily.
     "That's enough Earth TV for today," Peppy sighed as he turned it back to Lylat TV.
     "Anybody up for some Mario Kart 64?" Falco asked.

***      It went a lot like that till lunch. We played Nintendo, air hockey, and all that stuff. We even played squirt gun tag in the halls. I feel like a secret agent when we play that game. At the end, I hit four people, Falco had three, and Peppy and Slippy had two each. At lunch, we went back to the den to eat. We just made a little something for ourselves, nothing big and fancy. I had a turkey sandwich, Falco had a PBJ sandwich, Peppy made himself a small salad, and Slippy had a baloney sandwich. We ate quickly, since we were hungry from all the activities that morning. When we were done, we went to sit on the couch.
     "BE-DEEP BE-DEEP BE-DEEP!!!" my comlink screamed in my ear. I reached up and pushed the answer button.
     "Yeah, what is it, ROB?" I asked. ROB.
     "Team, come to the bridge immediatly," he ordered in his expressionless voice.
     "C'mon! Let's go!" I commanded. We ran down the halls to the bridge. We entered the massive bridge and stood next to ROB, who was looking at a radar moniter.
     "Look," he replied as he pointed to the moniter. A ship was moving towards us. It was small, so it wasn't a huge threat.
     "I'll try to contact it," I answered. I commanded the computer to contact the ship. I stood in front of the visual phone. The camera focused on my face.
     "This is the Great Fox. Fox McCloud speaking. I request identification from you," I ordered.
     "Request denied, buddy!!!" answered a young voice, about my age. I knew that voice, but I wasn't sure who it was yet. Then, the ship's camera kicked in. It showed a brown, wet nose on a big, grey snout. He wore sunglasses, and a green helmet with a yellow arrow going down the front, pointing at the pilot's face. Two grey, floppy-yet-erect ears stuck out of the helmet.
     "Bill?! Is that you?!" I asked disbelievingly.
     "Yep. I came to congradulate you, Star Fox!" he answered cheerily. Dogs are always either happy, happy, happy, or bummed, bummed, bummed. Bill was the former at the moment.
     "Can I come aboard, Foxman?" he asked.
     "Why not, Snoopy?" I replied enthusiasticly.
     "All right! I'm comin' over! I'll be there in a minute, so open one of the docking bays. How 'bout the one in the back?"
     "Sure!" I replied as I commanded the computer to open the rear docking bay.
     "It's open Bill! C'mon in!" I laughed. I watched on the moniter as the surviellence camera followed Bill's small ship into the rear docking bay. Bill got out of his ship and looked up at the camera. He waved and smiled. He wore a brown aviator's jacket. The shoulder had a couple of Air Force patches. Under that was a tan-green jumpsuit and the same metal knee-high boots I wore. Bill's tail wagged slightly as he walked down the hall. The camera followed him till he got to the door that led to the interior of the Great Fox. A minute later, I heard a knock on the door.
     "Enter if you dare!!!" I joked. Bill opened the door and strolled in like it was no big deal.
     "Nice place ya got here, Fox," Bill admitted.
     "C'mon Bill! Let's go to the den, er, rec room," I invited.
     "Sure! Where is it?"
     "C'mon, guys! Follow me, Bill!" I urged as I ran out the door. We ran to the den, excited and happy. We jogged in, panting like, well, dogs.
     "Wow! This is what I call a rec room!" Bill exclaimed.
     "Thanks. We did it ourselves," I answered, gesturing to the team.
     "You guys got good taste," Bill smiled as he set his headgear on the small table under the coatrack. He hung up his jacket and hopped over and onto the couch.
     "C'mon guys! Let's par-tay!" he chanted.
     "Well, what do you want to do? Play Nintendo, watch TV, play cards..." I asked.
     "Hmmmm...how about some N64? I wanna get one, but I havn't escaped yet to get one." He picked through the vast library of games.
     "How 'bout Extreme G?"
     "Excellent choice, my friend," I agreed with an Italian accent. I popped it in the N64 and was about to turn it on when...
    "BE-DEEP BE-DEEP BE-DEEP!!!" my comlink screamed.
     "What, ROB?!" I answered annoyedly.
     "Team to bridge immediatly,"
     "Now what?!!" Falco grumbled as we ran to the bridge. We ran as fast as we could to the bridge, as we had just done no more than half an hour ago. I ran to the control panel and looked at the radar screen. A single blip came towards the east side of the Great Fox.
     "I'll call 'em on the phone.(dialing) This is the Great Fox. Fox-"
     "Yeah, yeah. Save your breath for your final screams." That was a very familar voice!
     "Well, if it isn't James' little brat, Fox!"
     "Oh. You again. I thought I killed you on that trash heap most commonly called Venom," I growled.
     "Well, I returned. And I want your worthless blood on my dagger," he snapped.
     "Oh yeah? Where's the rest of your little group? Did their ships leave a mark on Venom's worthless surface?" I teased.
     "That's for me to know and you to find out. Now, if you will kindly come out in that trash-can you call an Arwing and fight, I would be happy to turn you into space dust," he taunted.
     "Alone," he added.
     "Um, bye guys. I gotta go smear Wolf's butt on an asteroid," I replied to the team.
     "Good luck, Fox," Bill said as I ran out the door to the bay. I ran to my Arwing and got out a small remote control. I opened the cockpit with it and hopped inside. I closed the hatch and buckled my 100 G space restraint (my seat belt). I pulled out the key and put it into the ignition. The engine hissed as it started up. After about 5 seconds of hissing and growling, the moniter said READY FOR TAKEOFF in big red letters. I reacted accordingly by hitting the accelerator. The engine roared and the ship jerked forward, and I went speeding off into space.
     "WA-HOO!" I yelled. I always get a kick out of that part. I opened the wings for better manuverability. I gained control and looked at the radar screen. I was a yellow triangle in front of the Great Fox. Wolf was a black triangle coming towards me.
     "You'll be seeing your dad soon, Fox" he taunted.
     "We'll see about that," I replied.
     "Finally, you will become what you deserve to be, space junk!" he mocked. He flew towards me in his Wolfen-class fighter.
     "Where's your fancy-smancy Wolfen 2?" I asked.
     "You blew it up! I had to call for help and a Wolfen," he growled.
     "All that to kill me? Aw, ya shouldn't have," I joked.
     "Ha-ha! Let's see if you're still laughing when I blow you to bits!!!" he yelled.
     "Well? Where are we going to fight? Here?" I asked.
     "YES! RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!!!" he screamed craziliy. He came up behind me and shot at me with his red lasers. I barrel-rolled; the lasers bouncing harmlessly away into space. I loop-de-looped and landed right behind him. I shot at him. He took a little damage, but not much.
     "Is that all, Star Fox?" he sneered.
     "You ain't seen nothin' yet, Wolfy!" I shot back. He did a loop and ended up benind me. I did a loop. He did a loop. We're not going to get anywhere doing this, I thought to myself.
     "I know. I'll lose him in the clouds," I smirked. I headed straight towards Corneria's blue oceans and white clouds.
     "Think you're so smart? You just said your plans out loud!" Wolf cackled.
     "I did?! Damnit!" I cursed. I flew towards Corneria anyway. Sure enough, Wolf followed me. He would have figured out my plan by now, but he was too caught up in shooting me. I hit the accelerator hard. It leaped forward like it had been kicked by a soccer player. I told the radar screen to look for the Cornerian Air Force Base. It said I was about five minutes away at the speed I was going.
     "Good," I replied to myself. "Now I'd better give General Pepper a ring." I dialed in Pepper's video phone number. The good General jumped back a bit when my little black nose appeared on his phone moniter.
     "Fox! What do you want?!" the old hound barked.
     "Aren't you happy to see me, General?" I asked innocently. "Here's what I want: Send ten troops on Airstrip Number Two. Tell them to set their laser rifles on stun."
     "But why, Fox?!" he asked impatiently.
     "I have a present for you. And no, I'm not telling. It's a surprise! Fox out."
     Wolf appeared out of the clouds, right behind me.
     "Ha! You can run, but you can't hide, Fox!" he laughed.
     "Fine. I'll run," I replied shortly as I hit the accelerator. Now it would probably take one minute to get to the base. I checked the radar screen. The base was about ten seconds away. It's now or never, I thought to myself as I pulled a loop and landed behind Wolf. I carefully aimed in the center of green glowing ball which was the exhaust. I fired. BOOM!!! The exhaust disappeared and the screaming of his engine died away.
     "What?! My engine!!! NOOOOOOO!!!"
     "Land there," I instructed.
     "Fool! You could have killed me, but your ridiculous conscience got in the way!!" he laughed triumphantly.
     "Not excactly. Look harder," I said slyly.
     "You pile of sewage!!! That's a Cornerian Air Force strip!!!" he screamed as his ship skidded to a stop on the runway.
     "Yep. Have fun in prison, Wolf!!!" I laughed as I began to head upwards. I radioed the troops' comlinks with my own.
     "Don't kill him, boys. Just display him in prison," I smiled.
     "Thanks, Fox!!!" they cheered in semi-unison over their comlinks. I looked down and waved. They waved back. They ran to the ship and tried to drag Wolf out. He refused, of course, so they shot him and dragged him to the base. I chuckled a little, then pointed the Arwing towards the sky and boosted off into space.

The End