"I can't believe the guys talked me into this..."
Slippy Toad found himself whispering curses as he slowly made his way through a passage in the stone wall... which he barely even fit inside of. Toad then remembered that he should probably stay a little more quiet if he wanted to fool the winged beasts in the room next door. The green frog noiselessly dropped onto the smooth limestone floor on the other side of the passageway and staggered to his feet. Slippy restrained a yelp of surprise caused by the sight that met his eyes a moment later.
'Gosh... that's a lot of monsters,' he realized. Fortunately for him, they were all soundly sleeping. Slippy found in an instant the object that he had been sent to retrieve. It was a long, slender, emerald-colored staff. The power the object possessed radiated from it as a bright light that littered its surroundings with a greenish hue.
The frog cautiously tip-toed across the room towards the emerald staff, being well aware that his friends in the next room were monitoring his every move. Slippy knelt on the ground, and reached out with one hand to pick up the staff...
Meanwhile, Peppy, Fox, and Falco all crowded around the small 'peephole' in the cavern next door, so that they could guard the frog's progress more closely. The two Yoshies and Sara stood back and awaited their turn to watch what Slippy was doing.
Slippy jumped back in surprise when he noticed something beyond the emerald staff move. He shook his head and blinked out the sight, thinking he was just 'seeing things'. Slippy once again reached for the staff, but stopped when, again, he caught something moving in the background. The frog stared at the wall ahead of him for a long while. It was suspicious-looking in the fact that there seemed to be an abnormal bulge a few feet away that looked as if it once wasn't a part of the wall... but other than that, it was just rock...
Fox was anxious for Slippy to hurry up, grab that green stick and get the heck outta there. He wondered why his friend was sitting there for so long...
"What's he doing??" Falco whispered harshly. He was wondering the exact same thing.
Slippy shrugged away the sight for the last time and snatched up the staff in front of him with one clean swipe. In a sudden burst of great relief, the frog jumped to his webbed feet, waved the glowing object in the air, and shouted excitedly back to his teammates, "I GOT IT!!"
Falco, Peppy, and Fox all groaned and smacked their foreheads in unison. "Slippy, what are you doing!?!" Falco hollered. Fox would have scolded the falcon for talking too loudly, but he knew that already their cover had been blown.
Slippy caught Falco's shout of disapproval, and slowly a look of confusion fell over his amphibian face. The frog eventually realized his folly, but at the same time so did something else.
"GRR..."
Toad gulped. "Uh-oh..."
Slippy barely gathered enough courage to actually turn around and look for the source of that growl. Again, he became confused, but only for a moment. The sound... it came from the wall! And the wall... it was moving!!
Surely enough, that wall was no wall at all. The stone barrier shifted slightly, then rippled out into a skin-like surface. A claw emerged from the forming scales, then a lengthy tail, and then the entity turned around...
Slippy was trembling so badly, he allowed the emerald staff to fall from his grip and loudly clatter to the floor. Being completely oblivious to that, though, the frog could only manage to speak up in his usual nervous stutter. "I-It's a... it's a-a... it's a..."
"Monster!!" Fox yelled out. "Get out of there!!" Peppy called to the frog, who was frozen in his place from fear.
Slippy didn't budge an inch. As he stood there helpless, the monster finally completed its lumbering turns and hovered over the panic-stricken Lylatian with gleaming eyes and a menacing grin. Only until the creature stretched out its long neck and unleashed a deafening roar did Slippy acquire enough sense to get a move on.
"AHHH!!! HELP!! HELP!!!" he screamed. Slippy clumsily stumbled over his own feet before he whipped around and bolted for the exit, or rather, the way he came in. At the same time, every other winged beast in the same room awakened, although not so happily, to find an intruder among them. Their roars only amplified the angry atmosphere that smothered the room like a black cloud. Slippy was well on his way out of there, and was already being hauled through the slim crack in the wall by the time any of the monsters were on their clawed feet and standing.
Peppy and Fox helped to drag a frightened Slippy back into the safety of the dark cavern by his green, slimy arm. The frog, upon reaching the other side of the passage in the wall, acted in accordance with his name and literally slipped down the tower of stones that served as a staircase. As he stumbled all the way to the floor, Sara and the Yoshies were shoved out of Slippy's way, and they nearly fell off of the stack of rocks themselves. The three staggered back to the top of the stone structure and peered down at the fallen form at the foot of the rock pile. Slippy was left stranded on the ground, quite bewildered. "Owie..." he groaned.
Falco crawled over to the hole in the wall and checked to see what had happened to the monsters on the other side, while everyone else was distracted with Slippy. The falcon's eyes widened with horror and he looked back to his friends before announcing in a shaky voice, "You guys, they're coming!!"
Fox hurried to where Falco was and shoved his feathered companion out of the way so that he could see what on Corneria was going on. The vulpine gulped nervously. "Oh crud..."
"Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!!" Falco barked out that simple order as he purposely slid down the pile of stones and made a mad dash for the opposite end of the cavern. Fox was hot on his heels, only stopping to motion for Sara, Peppy, Slippy, and the Yoshies to get moving. The five animals reluctantly did so, but only until a few seconds later did they realize why they should have been hurrying.
"Oh $%&, oh $%&, oh $%&..." the falcon muttered as he ran. Peppy was following him, and the hare caught the persistent curses. "Falco, don't swear! This is no time to panic!"
"GRRAAAAAGGGG!!!"
The furious roar of an angry beast, followed by a booming sound and the pounding of clawed feet suddenly echoed into the cavern. Everyone stopped dead as they listened for what was happening. Their silent questions and worries were quickly answered, though, when the assorted piles of stones stacked at one side of the room were toppled out of the way and scattered all over the limestone floor. A giant fire-breathing beast had crashed through the wall and lumbered its way into the dark cavern!
Peppy fell back onto his paws from the sudden shock of an entire wall being blown away. "Oh $%&!!" he cursed.
"I'd say this is the perfect time to panic!!" Falco remarked.
The seven animals scurried off in the opposite direction of the snarling beast, and back to where they had entered the room from. Everyone slipped through the opening in the floor one at a time, and soon StarFox, Sara, and the Yoshies could relax for a little while as the cavern above their heads filled with monsters.
"Ah, spriff it. Here we are... again..." Meekachu remarked with a deep sigh.
"I think it is important to remember that we are all still alive," Miya reminded him.
"Yes, but we are still without the emerald staff. That green, slimy numbskull probably dropped the thing on the way out," the yellow Yoshi snarled as he gestured towards the short green frog.
"Oh... Well, it was an honest mistake. I'm sure we can get it back."
"Heh. Well, all the harder it's going to be now."
The yellow dinosaur then proceeded to express his complaints to Tieka, this time in a silent conversation. Miya watched them argue it out from a distance.
Sara Jackson wore an annoyed look on her black, striped face, and she promptly spoke out her annoyances once she was finished 'speaking' with the yellow Yoshi.
"Slippy, what did you do with the staff? The one you were supposed to get from that room over there??"
Slippy frantically searched his clothes, but with no results. He shrugged helplessly. "I-I didn't mean to l-lose it. I must have dropped it or s-something!"
The green frog cringed as he was bombarded by shouts and growls of disapproval.
"SLIPPY!!" everyone barked out in unison.
"Arg... Slippy!!" Fox growled, "How could you do that?!? We were counting on you!"
"Do you remember where you left it?" Peppy interrupted the angered fox's lecture.
"Um... er... yeah! I do!" the frog cheerfully proclaimed. "It was... um... in the same room as where I found it. I dropped it right there."
"Great, so now we just have to go get it. Piece of cake," Falco sarcastically remarked.
"Perhaps this tunnel leads around to there somehow. We could use a back door kinda thing," Sara suggested. Falco put a stop to that idea. "No, this is a one-way road. It goes all the way back to that other room stuffed with monsters. I've checked."
"Well, there has to be some way..." Fox dwelled on that thought for a moment. "The only way I see to go is to get back up there, take it, and get the hell out of here. The only question would be, where would we go from there?"
"I think the real question would be how to distract those monsters long enough to get that staff back," Peppy added his grain of salt.
"Exactly what does that thing do, anyway?" Falco wondered. "Meekachu say it is important. He did not say why," the salamander replied with an informative note.
"Well why don't you ask him?" the falcon sneered. He was still trying to keep his cool in such a situation, but the effort was clearly useless, and even as he asked that question, Sara could detect a hint of frustration in his voice.
"All right, all right, I will," she responded defensively. "Don't get your tail feathers in a ruff."
Meekachu scratched his large round nose as he conjured up a good reply. Tieka had just dished out one of those questions that doesn't have any simple answer. "Well, Tieka, um..." he started, "That er... emerald staff is important because... well... it's one of the keys to opening the doors to the other realms. Your realm, to be precise."
Miya snickered at her father's clumsy answer. Still, she wondered why he was so reluctant to explain what that object's exact use was.
Meekachu, in the meantime, had come upon a problem. His reply to that simple question apparently didn't satisfy the five foreigners, who had started up a fit over the matter. Even so, the only thing he'd tell the persistent Tieka was that she'd know what the staff was for soon enough. Eventually, this strategy worked, and everyone chilled out.
The yellow Yoshi sighed with relief and turned his back on his interrogators once they had stopped paying him any attention. Meekachu hit the floor instantly and rested his head in his hands, trying to think of something...
"Meek, what is that thing for, anyway?"
The yellow Yoshi lifted up his head and displayed a fierce glare to the pink dinosaur in front of him. "I just said what it was for," he snarled.
"Yeah, but what does it do? How does it work? You surely must know of these things, considering that you've told me so much about these caves and such already."
Meekachu muttered loudly as he turned away from his daughter, "I don't know..."
"What?! Then how do you know that it's even important, if you don't know what to do with it?"
"Miya, would you mind not being so nosy? I know what I'm doing here."
"You just said that you didn't know."
"Grr... PLEASE!" the yellow Yoshi growled through clenched teeth. "Don't... start... this argument again," he finished, a bit more calmly.
"Oy... fine, I won't interfere," Miya responded with a shrug of surrender.
"So, how are we going to distract these big brutes?" Peppy Hare resurrected the topic.
"Well, a decoy has never failed," the fox commented.
Sara's eyes sparked with a sudden idea. "Oh course! Shiny things!"
"What?" Fox asked.
"The beasts... They love shiny things! You know, anything that's reflective or metallic. They store stuff like that in big stashes that are usually hidden to outsiders."
Peppy's ears twitched at the sound of that. "You mean, like what me and Falco found?"
Slippy caught the idea, too, "...And what me and Fox found?"
Sara tilted her head to one side and placed her hands on her hips, a gesture which usually signaled puzzlement or confusion. "You guys each found a hoard here? Well, that's not a surprise, but most of these beasts are very defensive of their hoards... You wouldn't be able to get very close."
Falco cleared his throat. "We got... pretty close."
"So, how could we use that to our advantage?" the fox inquired.
"I don't know... We could throw something out there and then run up and get the staff while they're distracted," Sara spoke up. This idea was quickly accepted, but it still had some quirks to it.
"Yeah, but what do we have that would do the trick?" the hare asked.
The salamander scratched her chin and tapped her foot while considering her options. Soon enough, she discovered a solution to their dilemma. She quickly left her fellow Lylatians to their own business, and wandered over to Meekachu in order to ask of him a favor. Seconds later, after a short discussion, the yellow Yoshi produced a bright red stone in his hand, seemingly out of thin air. He handed it to Sara, and the salamander whooped with glee, thus attracting the attention of the other four animals.
"Sara, what is it now?" Fox asked her.
"I have found our 'distraction,' in case you are interested."
"Let's see, let's see!" Slippy croaked.
Sara held out one closed fist and unfolded her fingers to reveal a bright red stone resting in the palm of her hand. It glimmered and shone from what seemed to be its own power, a feature that was remarkably similar to the emerald staff that the seven travelers were seeking.
"I was lucky enough to find this stone while I was exploring with Meekachu and Miya. Meekachu has kept it safe for me. This, I believe, will be perfect for keeping away the beasts outside."
Fox nodded thoughtfully. "Hmm... Maybe you're right, Sara, but still..."
"Hehe... I am always right," the salamander giggled. Falco snorted. "Whatever you say, Sara."
The salamander pouted. "What, you don't think I'm right all the time?"
Fox coughed loudly, "Ahem... you guys, it's rude to interrupt." After a silence had settled over the other six animals once again, the fox continued, "As I was saying... We are still going to need a decoy. Someone to keep those beasts distracted long enough for someone else to run out there, grab the staff, and come back." Fox studied the group carefully for a few moments. His gaze stopped at the most athletic-looking of the six. The Cornerian grinned slyly.
"Falco, dear buddy, you'd be perfect for this job."
"I... I WHAT?!?" the avian choked. Peppy started laughing, "Yeah, feathers, go out there and play bait for us!"
Falco considered this for a moment, then he folded his wings across his chest and grinned smugly. "Hrmph. All right, I'll do it. Just watch me send those monsters for a real run."
"The only running they'll be doing is for a falcon lunch," the hare pointed out.
"Shuddup, Peppy. I'd like to see you out there instead of me."
Peppy promptly shut his lips and turned away from his feathered friend. The hare shook his head while rolling his eyes. "It's your funeral," he muttered.
"Who's going out to get the staff?" Slippy wondered out loud. His words had the topic of conversation changed yet again, and for probably the umpteenth time.
"I can do that," Fox volunteered. At first, there were no objections to that one. "Wait," Sara spoke up, "What about Miya and Meekachu? They could be of service here."
"I wouldn't think they would want to, Sara, but they can help if they want to," the fox answered.
"Ooh! I wanna help! Please, Meek, let me go!"
"Miya, that's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. Why on Yoshin would you want to go out there with those maniacs?"
"PLEEEAASE??? It'll be fun! Besides, they don't know as much about dragons as I do! I can help! Tell them I'll help!"
Meekachu smacked his closed eyes with his hand and shock his head. "Oy... fine, I'm not stopping you. Just come back in at least one piece, okay Miya? Be careful," he requested. Miya rushed up to the yellow Yoshi and squeezed him tightly. "Okay," she lied.
"Miya! I'm serious. Don't go getting yourself killed just for these dumb animals."
The pink Yoshi pulled away from her father with a disapproving frown on her usually happy face. Once again, she was tempted to rebuke Meekachu's discrimination toward the alien beings, but for her own sake she held her tongue. "Oohh... fine. Just tell them I'm coming with them. Please?"
Meekachu shook his head and yet again grumbled something to himself. The Yoshi gestured his daughter's plea to the salamander, who relayed the information back to her foreign friends. Miya gleefully trotted off to join her companions, and Meekachu stood back with his arms crossed in front of him.
"Foolish, foolish child... Good luck to thee."
Sara handed off the red stone to Falco as he and Fox were heading back outside into the cavern above. She pulled her friend close and quickly whispered into his ear, "Good luck, Falco." The falcon laughed quietly while replying smoothly, "Don't worry, Sara. I'll be right back." With that, both Cornerians launched themselves off the back of the pink Yoshi and through the hole in the roof above. The pink reptile took into the air right after them, and then all three were gone from sight in the wink of an eye.
"Ohh...! I'm so worried. I hope they make it," Sara spoke her worries once the trio had escaped hearing range.
"They have to," Peppy replied.
It was then set. The pink Yoshi, the blue falcon, and the red fox would go retrieve the emerald staff, and with a little luck, they'd all come back alive.
"Go!"
Fox gave the order, and instantly the Yoshi, fox, and falcon split directions and ran head-long into the dangerous cavern.
Falco turned left towards the end of the cavern opposite the smashed-in wall that Fox was heading towards. The blue avian attempted to stealthily sneak up behind the group of beasts while the pink Yoshi charged at them from the front. In that manner, things would end up being played out as a game of 'keep away', with the red stone being the object being thrown around.
The monsters, however, were two steps ahead of the pair of renegades. There were six in total; all huddled close to each other. The largest of the group lashed out with a slicing claw at the falcon while planting its long thick tail directly in the Lylatian's path. Falco stumbled backwards, just barely missing the deadly weapon, and was then tripped by another incoming claw from behind. The fearsome beast reared its head high into the air and clamped yet another set of claws around the falcon's midsection, thus holding him in place. Falco squirmed under the weight of the claws, but his effort was in vain. He risked a quick glance at the snarling beast's face. It was quite literally drooling from hunger.
Miya sprang from her place as another snapping jaw flew towards her. She was slowly being pushed backwards by three of the angry dragons that had separated from their group. They were all small in comparison to the beast that was attacking the blue bird, but they still presented a threat to the pink Yoshi, none-the-less.
Miya was quickly forced against a stone wall, and in a time too brief for words, the short gap that existed between herself and three hungry monsters was no more. The pink dinosaur dodged yet another attempt at eating her, rolled to her right, and hopped out of the way again as a second dragon attempted another strike.
"Three against one! No fair!" she whined. The third dragon threw a clawed arm in Miya's direction, but the Yoshi was too quick, and by the time she had pushed herself into the air, the dragon's claws passed just under her feet. Miya flew over the beast's snapping jaws and struck its face with a lighting-speed high kick. Her feet hit the floor and Miya flung herself against the wall again before anything could react. The dragon reeled back, temporarily stunned. One of the smaller ones roared with fury as its larger friend stepped in to make the kill. The dragon's head swooped in low, jaws agape and eyes whirling yellow. Miya took a deep breath, and was in the air again in a smooth leap. The Yoshi soared above the sharp teeth in a repeat performance, and landed square onto the monster's head. In an equal quickness, she jumped once more, using the dragon's thick skull as a boost.
Miya was behind the dragons and running away as fast as she could before any of the three beasts could realize where she went off to. In a glance to her left, the Yoshi caught sight of two more dragons crowded around another of their unlucky victims...
If this were any other of his foes, the falcon would gladly spit in his face and keep fighting. Falco didn't exactly have the chance to do so at that particular moment. The monster hovering over him had a heavy set of claws pressed over his torso, which restricted most movements. The beast belonging to those claws displayed most of its yellow-stained teeth in a deep growl, and at just the same time another smaller monster appeared from out of a corner of the falcon's vision.
"%&#$ you, man," the avian snarled. The monster pressed down harder on Falco, causing the red stone in the falcon's hand to be released in a grunt of pain. Falco immediately found it harder to breathe, and soon he could feel his energy being drained from him, as the winged beast continued to squash him into a pancake. The falcon's vision blurred, and the only thing he remembered seeing after that was something moving beyond the monster's hind legs...
Miya briefly stepped into the path of a smaller dragon that was preoccupied with watching its bigger companion squeeze the life out of the blue bird. That was all she had to do to get the beast's attention. Miya coolly winked at it, then bounced backwards and landed on a spot just under the belly of the monster behind her. The small beast swerved to its right and drove its bulky head between the legs of the larger dragon, trying to snap up the small, jumpy dinosaur. The pink Yoshi leapt out of the way in time to avoid the incoming teeth, then stood back from a distance and watched with a smug grin as the chaos unfolded.
The large dragon shrieked with surprise and flew from the wall it was facing, thus releasing the alien from its tight grip. The smaller beast also recoiled from the scene after realizing who it had just shoved its face into. Both stood their ground and faced each other, even after a harsh exchange of growls and bared teeth. The dragons instantly forgot about the two miniature meals they were chasing after, and were soon involved in a fierce squabble. Claws, tails, and scales were thrown together in a huge mess as the dragons fought out their complaints.
Miya used this distraction to her advantage, and she bolted to the bird's side as soon as it was safe to do so. She nudged the foreigner's shoulder until he regained consciousness, and the Yoshi then helped him to his feet. As Miya began to lead the pair back to safety, the dinosaur made note of the fact that one of the dragons had strayed from the original group...
"This figures. The last person I expect to save my hide..." Falco muttered. The pink reptile had him by the arm, and was dragging the avian away to a safe distance from the two battling monsters. Just when the duo had covered a reasonable distance, three more of the beasts stomped into their paths, growling angrily. Miya and Falco skidded backwards into the wall they had just retreated from.
"Just great. I hope Fox is having as good a time as we are."
Fox McCloud scrambled over the last of the shattered bits of stone and clumps of rock in order to reach the chamber containing the emerald staff. His gaze immediately fell upon the green-hued stick upon entering the chamber, and Fox wasted no time in running over to it and scooping up the object into his paws. The fox paused, however, once he caught sight of what was beyond the staff. It was a wide, far-reaching rock tunnel that led into a bright dot of sunlight. It was a way outside.
"Yes!! Perfect! Now all we need to do is-"
Fox was interrupted by a stray pebble that had bounced along the stone floor and landed near the Lylatian's feet. He stopped, looked down at his feet, and watched the tiny pebble for a long time. This pause was followed by a deep growl, and Fox didn't have to turn around to know where it came from.
A relatively small monster had stumbled into the cavern, eyes swirling yellow with alarm and pearly teeth bared like a fierce dog ready to strike up a kill. Even though it was smaller than its monstrous companions, the beast was still ten times the size of Fox. It stomped a few steps forward and hissed a warning.
Instead of dropping the staff in his paws, as Slippy did earlier, Fox gripped it even tighter and braced himself against a limestone wall near the entrance to the exit tunnel. The monster almost smiled with ghastly pleasure while it watched its prey retreat to the nearby wall. It roared and charged at the fox in a sudden burst of energy. Soon, the beast was nearly on top of the fox. The furred Cornerian cringed at the smell of the monster's fishy breath, and at the brightness of the creature's eyes as it closed in on its newest victim. Fox held the staff in his paws in front of him defensively and squinted his eyes shut as he braced for yet another death trap... Funny how this would be the second time he would be at a winged monster's mercy...
The emerald staff shuddered under the fox's tight grip. The ruby eye of the majestic hawk carved into the staff's head emitted a blinding flash of red light, and strong jolt of electricity that lashed out and stung the nearest living being that dared to come too close. The winged monster looming above the fox was the first victim of this powerful blast of energy, and it took a good shock from the greenish-hued staff. The beast howled in pain and was sent sprawling onto its back. Fox couldn't believe his eyes, once he had opened them again. As soon as the Lylatian realized what had happened, he swiftly jumped up and swung the staff outwards, sending another wave of lightning flying towards the stunned monster. It shrieked and moaned in agony, then sprang backwards into the cavern where Falco and Miya were fighting a losing battle.