Star Crossed [an old and terrible Star Fox fanfic]

C31 - To You, As To Us All

"Fox!" came a shout from the crowd, followed by a few more equally-loud ones, and all hell broke loose afterwards. The captain stared into the frantic crowd, not exactly sure where to start.

"There are rumors that the General is seeking you as an enemy," came the voice of a media anchor over an opposite loudspeaker. "Is this true?"

"This was true," Fox simply answered.

"He reported you as dead, shortly before these rumors emerged. Is this also true?" the interviewer asked. Her face was shown on one of the screens across the stage, and Fox could see it was that of a poodle.

"Yes," Fox quietly confirmed.

"Why is this? And where is he? Do you know anything of his location, or that of Sergeant Grey? Why is Wolf here, and seemingly cooperati—" the canine interviewer let this flurry of questions loose.

"If I may answer that with a statement from Star Fox to the Cornerian people, and if everyone might be a bit quieter," the fox formally requested.

"...Alright," the poodle motioned, and added a few indicators to be quiet on the main screen.

Fox was front and center. He made a nervous gulp, and looked back to his team. Slippy gave two supportive thumbs up. Miyu smiled, and gave her wink, while Falco, equally nervous, shuffled in his boots. Peppy was looking, and waving, to the crowd, perhaps to build the trust with his status as the veteran of the older, far less conclusive conflicts.

Wolf, too, was lost in the moment like this, and looking to the crowd, but for far more weighty reasons. All he dreamed couldn't compare to this. He looked back at Fox, and gave the most genuine smile the fox had ever seen on anyone. All Wolf dreamed was nothing without who he'd found love with, in the process of gaining it.

"Corneria, this is going to be a day of reckoning for all of us," Fox began. "What Star Fox had found out, through its work, is that what you had held to be your Corneria is one intended to be an empire, founded on the intent of controlling and capitalizing on the entire system, and to be of the benefit of only its Supreme General. You may say that it was at the very least better, cleaner, and more suitable of a living than within the intended Androssian Empire, which was full of pollution, undesirable species, unruliness, and anarchy."

"What I must say to that is that these thoughts ruin us from their start, and that they are solely of a Cornerian conception... much like how Andross and his Empire were the result of a neglectful and nefarious General's hands."

"I think that one of the most prevalent philosophies of the era of General Pepper's rule was that, to be a strong ruler, one should strive to have an enemy to unite against; A perfect ruler, therefore, will have the perfect enemy, so it may be the greatest strength to craft the image of your own nemesis. To sway the people against it, no matter how real it may be, or how true these facts about it are, is simply to utilize the strength of the people."

"I would say that this exploitation, in particular, is one of the greatest signals that you live under the structure of a tyrant. Another is the invention of oppressions that would so supposedly improve life... the oppression of opposing ideas, of so-deemed 'OTHER' species... How many of you truly believe this? How many of you think that men, like the ones of my own team, contribute nothing? Have you never thought of their exclusion as unreasonable, the so-called science against them bafflingly incompatible with common truth? How many of you have lost someone from some of the things that this regime perpetuated?"

"I can tell you what I've learned. To be completely honest, if I had the choice between the two again, I'd have chosen Andross's side."

The audience gasped, despite all they came to understand, and Wolf raised his head.

"Andross was a bright scientist, sentenced by our Supreme General to a planet full of what he found to be pollutions of Cornerian origin, all for finding things he intended to help us, especially through empirical and trusted methods. It is only with manipulation, sabotage, and the purposeful fostering of vengeance that he became anything akin to evil! It is only when his closest friend was shot in his name, that he decided to want to put an end to Pepper's rule, perhaps conflating it with the destruction of Corneria itself in his insane rage, perhaps wanting to match Pepper's tyrannical rule with his own forces of anarchy."

"What I say to this is that I am glad to have pledged to neither, despite what it may seem. I take orders from no General. I was allied with not Corneria, and claim no continuation to Andross's evils."

"What Star Fox is, and what my father always intended for it to be, is an alliance with the people, and a bidder of their doing. We may have complied with the Cornerian orders given to us, but we would swear to be separate. We are the messengers of the stars, and the carriers of their righteous will."

What I'm about to say to you all, I hope I've sufficiently explained..." Fox shakily said, and hesitated for a moment, before resolving that the truth could wait no longer. "Pepper is dead; We killed him, only as he was about to execute us all."

Although there was reactionary noise, there was no considerable prolonged uproar over this, especially after this was explained.

"Sergeant Grey is under arrest, and will face trial in a fair court, once one is formed. A great restructuring of the forces of the known system will take place, and it will not be a quick endeavor, but what I hope we can agree on is the necessity for free and transparent discourse. What has happened, within so short of a time I've been away from what I still can't believe was my schooling," Fox reminisced, "will come to have defined the Lylat system as we know it."

"Nothing past this is certain, but I will immediately say that the restrictions and repressions of Pepper's era, and the eras before his, will be no more; No longer shall we define who is a Cornerian by the weight of their bones or the type of their skin. No longer will we have to be afraid to speak our minds, right our wrongs, or find new truths. No longer will we be made to live in the shadows of a single person, picked by the last!" he declared.

A resounding cheer came from the present crowd.

"Celebrate as you may," Fox nodded, "but find the patience in your hearts. As I said before, we have a long road ahead."

The cheer only swelled, though, and a familiar march started to play over the loudspeakers. The crowd started to revel, and, looking behind him, Fox saw that Falco and Miyu were sharing their long-deserved kiss. He smiled, and turned, now, to Wolf.

"That went well enough," Fox sighed.
"It sure did," Wolf agreed, far more seriously than McCloud did. He slung his arm around the fox's shoulder, and mirthfully laughed.
"We still have to figure so much out," Fox sighed.

"Lighten up a bit," Peppy urged.
"Yeah, Fox! Come on!" Slippy ribbited in revelry.

The captain, who had for so long faced trial after trial, one questioning of his loyalty after another, and closer scrapes with death than he could even imagine... finally took a long, deep sigh. It was over. Fox McCloud lived in a free world, and the first thing he did to take advantage of this fact was something he saw as obvious.

He walked right over to Wolf O'Donnell, stood on his toes, and gave him an unexpected kiss. The two embraced, and the kiss was prolonged...

"Thank you," Wolf huffed when it ended.
"Anytime," Fox shrugged, and winked.
"Bhah! Come here," O'Donnell grumbled, and lurched down to take the seemingly tired fox into his arms. "Heheh."
"Ah..." McCloud let out a sigh of further relief, as he was carried into the General's tower, where the members of Star Fox would come to take a temporary residence in, during the organization of a new leadership for the people.

This was the beginning of a new era, and Fox couldn't help but feel that it was long overdue.