Grown to Love

Chapter Thirty

Wolf dug his claws into the ground as he continued to cry in agony. "F-Fox! R-Run!" He cried out. Rage entered Fox's blood and he dashed over to Andross. He saw a rifle on the ground ahead of him and he kicked it as he ran, catching it in his hands. He shot while crying out at Andross. Protecting himself with his arms crossed across his face, Andross held off Fox. "Turn it off!" Fox cried out, his voice cracking and saliva flying out from his mouth. "Turn it off Andross!" "It's too late McCloud! Wolf is my loyal soldier once again!" Andross smirked. Fox jumped and kicked him with a roundabout kick. Andross fell to the floor and looked up at Fox with shock. Fox walked up to him and held the gun up to Andross's face. "Go ahead McCloud. You won't do it." Fox growled and pulled the trigger. The gun clicked. He dropped it and stepped back. He held his fists up and was about to strike Andross again when the screaming from Wolf suddenly ceased. He looked over and saw that Wolf was still being shocked but that he had his head hang low and that he'd gotten to his hands and knees. His body twitched as the shock finally started to cease. When it did, smoke began to emerge from Wolf's back and he breathed heavily. Fox turned his attention back to Andross. He sprinted towards him and jumped, ready to attack him. His tail was taken hold of and he fell hard to the floor. He held himself up slightly and turned his head over his shoulder. Wolf stood behind him, holding his tail, and breathed heavily. A low growl was coming from him and his fur puffed. "Wolf?" Fox called out. Wolf looked up and barked, saliva flying out of his mouth as he growled. His eyes almost illuminated as his irises changed from the soft lavender and faded blue to a brilliant blood red and faded purple color. The growl was strong in its low pitch and his grip around Fox's tail was strong. He pulled Fox back, tossing him across the ground. Once Fox stopped rolling, he held himself up a bit. He grew scared as he watch Wolf slowly make his way toward him. He got to his feet. "Wolf snap out of it!" The late lupine dashed towards Fox, his claws stretched outward. Fox rolled out of the way, sliding across the dirt as he stopped himself. "Wolf!" He cried again. Wolf barked as he dashed toward Fox, swinging his claws rapidly at Fox. His growls and barks were aggressive and his fur puffed more and more with each bark. Fox bit his bottom lip as he dodged and quickly kicked Wolf back. He dug his claws into the ground to stop himself for a brief moment only to start running at Fox in all fours. This startled Fox. His eyes grew and his heart skipped a beat. He jumped away as Wolf launched himself at him. The two had engaged in a chase. Wolf continued to try and attack Fox and Fox would simply dodge. Andross watched in amusement for a while. He soon grew bored though. "Wolf!" He called out. Both Fox and Wolf stopped. Fox breathed heavily as he glared at Andross. "Enough games. Kill him." "What?!" Fox shot his eyes onto Wolf as he was tackled. Wolf sat above him with his teeth bared and hand pulled back. His claws glistened with a soft red glow from the fire around them. Just as his hand was about to swing, Wolf himself was tackled. Fox got to his feet in a panicked breath. Falco had come around and held Wolf down. "Fox! Get outta here!" He cried out. Wolf placed both his legs under Falco's chest and kicked him off. The force had Falco fly over Fox and hit the ground hard. He gagged as his body hit the floor, having the wind knocked out of him. Fox ran over to him and helped him sit up. "You ok?" He asked. Falco winced but gave a nod in response. Soldiers from the Cornerian Army then started making their way to Wolf. "What're they doing?" Fox asked nervously as he looked over at the group forming around Wolf. "P-Pepper must'a told 'em to come hold Wolf back. He must want us to take care of Andross first." Falco slowly made his way to his feet and both he and Fox looked over at Andross. "Come on Fox. We can take him on." The sprinted over to Andross and began to fight him with hand to hand combat. Andross laughed out loud as he was capable of holding them off. He took the attacks but didn't even flinch. Fox saw his opportunity and when he did, he tripped Andross. He kicked him back and surprisingly had him roll from them. Irritated, Andross got to his feet and placed two fingers between his teeth and whistled. Wolf's ear twitched and he growled. Fox and Falco turned their heads over their shoulders. They saw the soldiers that surrounded Wolf get tossed back. Wolf had attacked on soldier and they all started firing at him. He dodged every bullet and picked up a soldier, throwing him far from the group. He did this to each soldier until none was left standing. He ran to Andross and stopped in front of him, guarding him. Fox and Falco were now face to face with Andross and Wolf. "I'm done with them. Take care of them Wolf. I'm going to find Pepper." Andross said as he walked off, snapping his fingers once. They snap quickly signaled Wolf to attack. Wolf's ears fell back as he dashed toward them. Fox and Falco kicked Wolf back as he came after them. "Don't let him get to Pepper Fox." Falco cried out. "I'll hold off Wolf. Stop Andross." Fox nodded and ran after Andross like Falco had told him to. Wolf got to his hands and knees and saw Fox running. He was about to run after him when a rock was thrown at him. He turned quickly with a snarl. "Your fight is with me fuzzball." Falco cried out. He dashed toward the raging dog and both quickly got into combat. Andross was already on the other side of the field and quickly found Pepper. The General had been fighting off Venomian soldier with everyone else. He was completely oblivious to Andross coming up behind him. When he heard footsteps come up behind him, General Pepper turned around and was quickly picked up off the ground. Andross held him up by the throat. "Hello General." Andross said. Peppy took down a Venomian and looked over, seeing Andross hold Pepper. "General!" He called out. Just then, Fox ran up behind Andross and drop kicked him with all the force he was able to muster up. The ape dropped Pepper and fell forward a bit. "General!" Fox shouted, his hand reaching out. Pepper grabbed the rifle he'd dropped and tossed it to Fox. As Andross turned around, standing. Fox quickly fire at him, having him take several steps back. When he tried moving forward, Fox ran at him and kicked him back, firing again. He fell back to the ground. Fox ran up to him and jumped over him, taking the end of the gun and hitting Andross hard on the back of the head. Andross fell to the floor face first. A groan came from him as he tried sitting up. The gun's barrel was placed directly in front of his face. It clicked at Fox loaded it. "Call it off Andross. You've lost, accept it." "McCloud!" A voice called out. Fox glanced over to the direction the voice came from. Pigma held Peppy with his arm and had a gun placed to his head. "Let Andross go and I'll release the rabbit." He called out. "Pigma you bastard!" Peppy said through a slightly shaken breath. Andross smirked and got to his feet. Fox kept the gun aimed at him. "Ah...Pigma. I knew my elite team would remain loyal to me." He spoke softly. He then looked down at Fox. "You heard him Fox." Fox glared up at the ape. His grip on the gun tightened and he began to breathe heavily. He sighed and lowered the gun. As he had said, Pigma let Peppy go. Peppy quickly ran for Fox but before he could get close to him, Andross flung his arm, hitting Fox. The gun fell from his hands and Fox hit the ground hard. Andross picked up the gun and aimed at Fox. "No!" Peppy cried out. He jumped in front of Fox. The gun fired and Peppy took the bullet. Fox's eyes grew as he saw Peppy skid on the ground. He breathed heavily, yelling as he got to his feet. He attempted to punch Andross but he was already very weak from the amount of hits he'd taken. Andross punched him, Fox falling again. He got back up, slower this time, and tried to go for him again but Andross once again punched him. Fox tried getting up once again. He held himself up but his arms shook terribly. Instead of getting to his feet he dragged himself over to Peppy. The hare was conscious and groaned in pain. "Peppy?" Fox's voice was raspy and weak. He turned him over and the hare smiled weakly. "I couldn't let him get you..." he said. "Where'd did you get shot?" Fox's eyes stung as tears built and fell as he blinked. Peppy moved his hand from the side of his stomach. It bled. Fox winced as he exhaled slowly and laid down next to Peppy. Pepper stood to the side and witnessed everything. He swallowed the knot that had built up in his throat. "Andross." He called out. The primate turned to face the General. "I assume you're going to ask me to spare them?" Pepper nods. "Let then live. I'll surrender." And with that, Pepper knelt down and held his head low. Andross smiled, his teeth glistening with the fiery light. "General!" Falco's voice shouted. Pepper looked up and found the bird making his way towards them. "Don't you give up yet." Andross's smile fell into a frown as he looked behind him. "How're you still alive? You'd be no match for Wolf." "You'd be surprised." Falco smirked. As he got closer, a noticeable limp and his many wounds grew visible. "Ah..." Andross relaxed. "You managed to run off. He's on his way back, isn't he?" "Oh yeah he is." Falco smirked. Confusion took hold of Andross. With all the remaining strength in his body, Falco ran at Andross. It happened at so incredibly fast that Andross didn't have time to think. Falco stopped just inches away from Andross, jumping over him. Andross watched the avian jump over him and land behind him. When he faced forward again, his eyes grew as he saw Wolf jump at him with his claws stretched out at him. He was tackled by the canine and was soon being smashed at. Falco made his way over to Fox and Peppy. Running over from a distance, Slippy finally arrived to the scene. He had a towel in his hand and he slid on his knees. He got to Peppy and placed it over the wound. "I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner!" Slippy struggled to find his words. "I had to find something to place over the wound. A-Are you alright though, Peppy?" Peppy day up and groaned. He took hold the towel and smiled weakly. "I'm fine Slip." The hare sighed. Falco held his hand out and Fox took it. Falco helped him up to his feet. "C'mon Fox, you can't get weak on me now. We've got Andross busy. I'm not sure what got over Wolf but he's like a super soldier all of a sudden. He don't feel no pain and he's a hell lot stronger. He's not spoken one word and he seems to be blood thirsty. We can't let him kill Andross but let's let him weaken the primate up a bit." Fox watched as Wolf slashed away at Andross violently. He then caught it from the corner of his eye. Pigma and Andrew were running over to Wolf with large pieces of concrete in their arms. "What're they doing?" Fox asked. They then threw the large blocks of concrete at Wolf. It had Wolf fly off of Andross. "No!" Fox cried out. He ran over to Andrew and Pigma. He tackled the pig and quickly following him Falco tackled the monkey. They held them down. "This is enough Pigma!" Fox punched the pig hard on the nose and Pigma got dizzy. He leaned his head back and mumbled to himself. Once Andross got to his feet, he placed his hand on his face and pulled it away, seeing blood trickle down his hand. He growled and turned to Fox. Again he grabbed him and held him off the ground. "Ah!" Fox flailed a bit as he was held up from the back of his shirt. Falco held Andrew down but looked up over his shoulder. Frustrated and unsure on what to do, Falco head-butt Andrew hard. He got up and tried to go after Andross but he was quickly kicked down by the large ape soon after getting to his feet. "I've had enough of you McCloud!" Andross spat at him. "I'm going to end this. My empire will thrive once you and this army are gone! I'm going to make sure you never interfere again!" From where he'd been flung, Wolf slowly got up. He groaned as he shook his head and tried focusing his vision. He looked ahead and saw Fox being held by Andross. He got to his feet and extracted his claws. From behind a pile of concrete blocks, Leon emerged and slowly made his way to Wolf. Wolf's ear twitched as he heard the crunching of footsteps drawing closer. He looked over and saw Leon slowly walking over to him. He growled and hunched a bit. "Woah, relax Wolf." Leon said softly. "I'm no threat. I promise. But you and I both know who is." Wolf relaxed a bit, still breathing heavily, and turned to face Andross and Fox again. "That's right." Leon continued. "I don't know what the shock did to you but I know it was Andross's last resort into having you brainwashed without being able to break. I want to go on a hunch and say it's stimulated a memory muscle in your head. However, I also know that so long a sim not a threat," he knelt down and placed his hand out. Wolf looked at the stretched out hand. His nose twitched as he sniffed the air and made his way closer to Leon. Once close enough to Leon, he knelt down and sort of crawled to him. He looked at the hand and back at Leon with both confusion and curiosity. "Look, you and I have worked together long enough for me to get to like you. Hell, even while you were in training and out through torture you were still fairly kind to me. You're probably my only friend I've ever really had. Working with Star Fox has helped me see that maybe what Andross has planned isn't the best. Especially what he's doing right now. This war he's trying to start here on Corneria has me get a glimpse into the future if we let it go Andross's way. Now I know you aren't quite understanding me, y'know, since you're kind of a mindless, blood thirsty slave to Andross, but I know that somewhere deep inside your head, somewhere deep inside your heart, you know you can take Andross out. He's the enemy. He'll kill Fox any second now so I'll stop wasting your time. Help Fox." Wolf looked down at his hand and found that he'd taken Leon's hand. Leon quickly smirked and gave it a firm shake. He let go and Wolf's ear twitch. He growled loudly as he stepped back and immediately dove into a dash towards Andross. He ran on all fours and pushed himself into Andross's side. Fox was released and he fell to the ground. He looked up in shock as Wolf punched and clawed away at Andross. It was surprising to see that Wolf, still being considerably shorter than Andross, was able to hold him down. Falco got up and watched the fight go down. He stood in awe. "Holy shit." He whispered. "This is..." "scary..." Fox said. Falco scoffed a bit. "No kiddin'. Andross must've down something to Wolf to give him such raw strength and power. We clearly need to make sure he doesn't kill the mad man." "How do we get him off of him?" Fox asked. Falco bit down on his finger and exhaled sharply. "I don't know." Pepper walked over to them with Peppy wrapped around his arm. "Boys," he started. "We need to get this fight to end. I can't afford to lose soldiers who weren't combat ready." Fox looked over at Andross and to General Pepper. "I think I know what we could do, just, stay back in case anything goes wrong." He slowly made his way to Wolf and Andross. As he approached them more, he picked up a near by gun. "Wolf," he started. Wolf Punched Andross several times in the face before giving him one last hard one directly in the center of his face. When his name was called, he looked over,  reaching extremely heavily. He saw Fox slowly approach him. "You can stop now. We don't want him dead. You really helped us out just now but you can relax now. Think you can get off him now? Think you can maybe...come back with me?" Wolf started blankly at Fox's face. The red in his eyes never left and it had Fox sweating. He adjusted his grip on the gun. It made a "click" sound and Wolf's ear twitched at it. He snarled and dove towards Fox, jumping on top of him. "Wolf no!" Fox cried out. Before Wolf could do anything else, Leon came by and swung a large concrete brick across Wolf's Head. He rolled off Fox and hit the ground hard. Fox looked up at Leon with fear in his eyes. "Get Andross in cuffs now. Wolf won't sit back just yet. We're going to have to knock him out." He said, not taking his eyes off Wolf as he got back to his feet. Fox swallowed hard and nodded. He got up and ran over to General Pepper. He spoke to Falco subtly and he switched places with Pepper. Then Fox and Pepper ran over to Andross who'd hardly been conscious. They had him sit up and placed his hands behind his back, quickly cuffing them. While they did that, Leon had started fighting Wolf back. He continued to hit Wolf hard against the head with the brick. Wolf fell back each time he was hit and yet he continued to get up but each time he fell, it was taking him more and more effort to get back up. He breathed heavily and the growls were starting to cease. He was hit hard and fell to the floor. He struggled to hold himself up a bit and his arms began to shake as he held himself up. "C'mon Wolf!" Leon called out. "You can snap out of this. Don't let Andross take you over. It's over now." Wolf got to his knees and looked up at Leon with a dazed look. He breathed slowly, wheezing a bit. Leon let go of the brick and walked over to Wolf. He knelt down and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's over. Andross is beat and you can come back to yourself." Wolf never looked up at Leon. He remained silent the entire time. Leon sighed and got up. He walked back to Fox who'd just cuffed the unconscious pig. "I got him to relax but I don't think he's quite himself." Fox looked over Leon's shoulder and saw Wolf sitting on his legs. Fox sighed heavily. "Thank you." He said. Leon gave a confused glance. "What for?" "For helping us. If it weren't for you, we probably wouldn't have beaten Andross." "Well...I couldn't bare to see my friend in such pain." Fox's ear twitched at the comment and he looked over at Wolf then back to Leon. He smiled softly. The two heard a loud crunch near them and they looked over to find General Pepper climbing on top of a pile of rubble. He pulled out a small gun from his pocket and shot it into the air. It was a flare gun and as it lit up the sky every soldier on the field stopped what they were doing. "Listen here you Venomians!" The general called out in a strong voice. "Andross has been beat! Your leader is no more. Cease your fire and retreat back or we will kill Andross." Each and every Venomian dropped their weapons and put their hands in the air. Pepper smiled to himself and stayed on top of the rubble. While all the soldiers where sent back to the ship, Leon, Fox, and Falco walked over to Wolf. He was dazed and quiet, his breathing finally slow, and his ears were limply handing down. Fox and Leon knelt down, facing him. Leon placed his hand on his shoulder and gave him a small shake. "Hey Wolf. Come on bud, get up. It's all over. We can get going. You can stay with Fox and I'll find a place of my own. Let's get you up." He got up and took hold of his arm. Wolf gave a low growl and Leon backed away. "Shit man." Falco then sighed heavily. "What's his deal. Can't he get it through his thick skull that it's ok for him to stop being so defensive?" Leon shook his head. "Andross didn't just put the set of words in his head. While in training, well his torture, Andross implanted a small chip into Wolf. He told me that it was for a desperate time. It would send a massive shock through Wolf. He told me it was a very strong voltage that it could have Wolf do his bidding no matter what. I don't know if it's because it was supposed to intimidate him or if, this is just a hunch, it hit a memory muscle. The worse case here is that it hit his memory and Wolf can't really remember us. All he knows is what's a threat and what isn't. I want him to get up so we could get him to a hospital. There's bound to be a way they could help but we can't get him there if he tries to hurt us." Fox bit his lip as he looked at the ground. He then turned around and picked up a brick. He turned quickly and hit Wolf hard across the head. The canine went limp and fell to the ground. Both Falco and Leon looked at Fox with shock. Fox then looked at them and shrugged. "What else would you have done?" They said nothing. Leon then knelt and took hold of Wolf's arms. He swung them over his shoulders and he pulled Wolf onto his back. "Let's get Peppy and Wolf to a hospital. They need rest." "I think we all do." Fox sighed. Falco got to Peppy and helped him walk. "Fox's right. This has all been very chaotic." Falco said. They started walking away from the battle grounds and as they passed Pepper, Fox looked over at him and called out to him. "General." Pepper looked over at them and made his way down from where he stood. "Fox, so glad you're all ok." Fox nods. "Glad to see you're fine too. I just wanted to say thank you. I'm sorry Andross had to come back and destroy the base. I'm always happy to come back and help clean up." Pepper waves his hand. "No no Fox please. If anything I should be the one apologizing and thanking you. I made a whole mess of things, right from the very start. I just hope you don't mind coming back as Star Fox's leader. James would be proud of the leader you've become. I'd hate for his legacy to die so soon." Fox smiled. "I'm more then happy to come back after a little rest." He turned back and started walking with the others. "I'll see you soon Pepper." He said.